COST AND PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS OF PHYSICAL SECURITY SYSTEMS

Analysis of the cost effectiveness of alternative designs is essential to a systems approach to the design of security systems. While the concept of analysis of costs and performance is straightforward, implementation can be, at the least, tedious; and, for complex designs and alternatives, can become nearly intractable without the help of structured analysis tools. CPA — Cost and Performance Analysis — is a prototype integration of existing PC-based cost and performance analysis tools: ACEIT(Automated Cost Estimating Integrated Tools) and ASSESS (Analytic System and Software for Evaluating Safeguards and Security). ACEIT is an established DOD PC-based tool that supports cost analysis over the full life-cycle of a system; that is, the cost to procure, operate, maintain and retire the system and all of its components. ASSESS is an established DOE PC-based tool for analyzing performance of physical protection systems. CPA collects the cost and performance data into Excel workbooks, making the data readily available to analysts and decision makers in both tabular and graphical formats and at both the system and subsystem levels. The structure of the cost spreadsheets incorporates an activity-based approach to cost accounting. The architecture, features and applications of the CPA prototype are presented. Keywords: security systems design, costs-benefits analysis, software tools, cost effectiveness