| Financial analysis: |  |
| Environmental impact analysis: | --- |
| Waste management/P2: | |
| Environmental cost listing/database: | --- |
| Cost estimation: | --- |
| Alternative product/process comparison: | --- |
| Financial analysis: | |
| Environmental impact analysis: | --- |
| Waste management/P2: | |
| Environmental cost listing/database: | --- |
| Cost estimation: | --- |
| Alternative product/process comparison: | --- |
| Cost control | |
| Resource control | |
| Estimating control | --- |
| Schedule control | --- |
| Scope control | --- |
| Risk control | --- |
Cobra is designed for cost and performance measurement and provides budget, actual cost, and earned value information. It features trend, summary, exception reporting, and cash flow management. No financial indicators are calculated. However, the program does calculate earned value and can generate various graphs that depict current performance and future performance based on estimated actuals. What-if analysis can be based on work package, cost account, resource element, or hierarchical structure elements. Changes may be applied as percentages, target amounts, or change amounts. There is no limit on the length of the projects. The periods that can be reported or printed at one time may be limited. Cobra has been designed to integrate with users' existing schedule and financial systems.
| Raw material acquisition | --- |
| Manufacturing stage | |
| Use/reuse/maintenance | --- |
| Recycle/waste management | --- |
The system is not designed to consider more than one life-cycle stage, and it would typically consider the manufacturing stage of the life cycle. However, users can apply different methods of including life-cycle information. For instance, they can define life-cycle stages in a WBS structure (up to 20 levels available) or through code files (defining work packages and assigning specific codes to them). The former method will probably work better with sequential information. The flexibility of Cobra allows users to sort and report information on particular WBS levels or work packages.
| Conventional | |
| Potentially hidden | --- |
| Contingent | --- |
| External | --- |
Cobra has been designed to consider only conventional costs. However, the flexibility of the system allows users to enter any cost information they require. Cobra allows user-defined cost classes and an unlimited number of rate and rate tables (for different or combined cost classes). It also allows a Resource Breakdown structure. The number of cost classes is limited to 16 to 20and it is advisable to restrict their use for things that need different rate tables. Users may be able to enter information on different cost categories by designating separate resource categories or by defining sorting codes. Cost categories (e.g., external costs) do not qualify per se as being resources as they are defined (a source of project support assigned to activities), but users may be able to perform the desired functions by assigning them in this manner. The data-filtering option can be used to exclude or include different cost categories defined in this manner.
The system is not designed for cost estimation.
| Net present value (NPV) | --- |
| Payback period | --- |
| Internal rate of return (IRR) | --- |
| Benefits cost ratio | --- |
| Other | --- |
The system does not generate financial indicators within the system, but integrating Cobra with financial systems that may perform these functions is possible.
WST offers Cobra as a system for enabling complete cost and schedule integration with their scheduling software products, Open Plan and Open Plan Professional. However, Cobra can import from CPM software (via ASCII files) and pricing software as well. Cobra supports ASCII or dBase transaction files fo actual cost collection. It can export data to Lotus 123 and Excel.
Besides having a set of built-in reports, the software supports user-defined report conditions and custom reporting. Cobra adheres to government-reporting criteria for contractors involved in defense, aerospace or energy contracts in the U.S and elsewhere. The attributes include a context-specific help function, pull-down menus, and user-defined prompts and responses.
The package allows up to 20 WBS levels, with up to 190 children per element in a level. Also, users have the ability to define cost classes and rates and assign resources in various ways. Users can maintain up to four separate forecasts per project and these may be entered manually as bottom-up estimates or generated automatically via efficiency factors. The program also supports subcontract management. This flexibility can support various kinds of projects, with unique budget and cost information, and the evaluation of different hypothetical scenarios.
WST offers training, consulting, and technical support to assist users in implementing their projects. They provide press reviews, and references upon specific request. Maintenance support is provided free of cost for the first year, with the option for annual renewal at a cost of 20% of the (current)retail price thereafter. The support includes technical support, enhancements and updates, and access to the bulletin board where users can exchange information. No demonstration software is available for Cobra.
Cobra does not provide users with information about including all cost categories. Not unlike other software systems, it is designed to consider only one life-cycle stage. However, as mentioned previously, its flexibility may allow users to include this life-cycle information. Although an unlimited number of resources can be defined in Cobra, the system can slow down if too many are listed. However, the functionality afforded by FoxPro allows a lot more data than, for instance, a Windows product could support (without substantial reductions in speed). Cobra can be used on low-end systems but maybe too expensive for users who need it for this purpose alone.
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