On the change of cost risk and uncertainty throughout the life cycle of manufacturing products

In practice cost estimators typically assume that cost risk and uncertainty continuously decrease across the whole product life cycle. Industry case studies and semi-structured interviews indicate that while cost risk and uncertainty decreases between technology readiness levels / stage gates, it increases when technology readiness levels / stage gates change. This increase can lead to cost risk and uncertainty levels above those at previous technology readiness levels / stage gates. This difference between assumptions in practice and evidence from case studies and semi-structured interviews may lead to the over- and / or under-assignment of capital reserves over time, thus resulting in binding project capital unnecessarily and / or the need to increase projects budgets in an unplanned manner. Further research is suggested regarding the scale of changes in cost risk and uncertainty when technology readiness level changes / stage gates are arrived at in order to improve robustness of forecasting efforts.