Cost Balance

When implementing any system costs must be justified by the benefit they achieve. This means that investing too much in any one aspect of a project is wasted effort. Three elements can be illustrated by a Balance Triangle (as shown above).

For example for many systems there is a balance between the costs to implement, the costs to run and the costs to maintain. If the focus is on minimising the build cost then the resulting system will be more expensive to operate and changing it will also be costly. If however more is invested in the implementation it is possible to build a system that is easier to keep updated and works more efficiently.

Random Story

A tale is told that when Henry Ford was selling the Model-T they decided to do a survey to review what caused the car to break down. The survey showed that some cars had issues with the wheels, some the gearbox, some the bodywork and so on, but that no car ever stopped working because a worn-out crankshaft. Henry Ford's immediate response was that obviously the crankshaft was being built to too high a standard and the company should find ways to build a cheaper and less reliable one.

Links to this page

The following pages link to here: Efficient