Affordability Comparison Tool — ACT

ACT is able to provide insight into acquisition, operational, and life-cycle affordability early in program formulation prior to a commitment of architecture, or anytime during the program to change systems or subsystems. ACT analyzes different systems or architecture configurations for affordability that allows for a comparison of total life-cycle cost, annual affordability, cost per pound, cost per seat, cost per flight (average), and total payload mass throughput. Although ACT is not a deterministic model, it does use characteristics (parametric factors) of the architectures/systems being compared to produce important system outcomes (figures-of-merit). The outcome figures-of-merit provide the designer with information on the relative affordability of different configurations.