Simulation Modeling for Cost Estimation
What do a group of statisticians have to contribute to the subject of good costing practices, and in particular the United States Postal Service (USPS) costing methodology? Credible cost estimates require the collection of high quality information as component inputs. Deciding what information to collect lies in the province of the economist, but exactly how to collect that information, when to collect it, how much of it to collect, as well as a significant part of the overall evaluation of the quality of the information itself, lies in the province of the statistician.2