Project financial information table

The project team must detail all past costs that the project has incurred since its inception (start of EvP) on an annual basis. In addition, an annual project financial information table (ProFIT) data sheet should be presented. This sheet contains the revenue and cost forecasts for the upcoming ten-year period. It computes net present value (NPV) of future cash flows and return on capital employed (ROCE) automatically. At this stage, the team is expected to include detailed production costs data as well as estimates of plant costs (based on an engineering estimate, for example). The ten-year projection should be provided for three scenarios base, optimistic, and pessimistic. These cases are not meant to be simple percentage changes of the sales projections. Instead, the team should try to identify the drivers of the project s success and construct alternatives for the future that lead to different results for the project. The base case should be the most likely case. The optimistic scenario should be based on the positive development of some (not all) key success factors. The pessimistic scenario is usually the minimum feasible case, meaning a situation where the organization would still prusue the project, but some factors do not develop in a positive way. 

Financial information relevant to the BN GT-300 project and projected effectiveness of the first-of-a-kind plant is given in Tables XVni-4 and XVIII-5 more details are given in [XVm-4]. 

However, not every environmental project requires a comprehensive and elaborate planning document. Usually the contents and the format of the SAP are determined by such factors as contractual requirements, regulatory agency oversight, or by financial constraints. A smaller document that contains the most essential SAP elements in combination with the Laboratory QA Manual may be as functional as a full-scale SAP. Appendix 7 presents an example of a SAP table of contents. A SAP prepared in this format is a very effective document that communicates the information essential for project implementation and assessment phases without being overloaded with information available from other sources. 

As a starting point for the planning of a development project. Tables 3 and 4 propose and summarize a phased scheme of a risk-oriented development plan. Several important milestones and decision points have already been included. Each phase must fulfil certain criteria in order to be accomplished before the next phase may start. Management decides whether a project is advanced enough to proceed to the next phase, since this decision is usually associated with the involvement of more people in different departments or of external participants and has significant financial implications. The data and information needed for an assessment of progress and criteria for the decision should be known beforehand. Most of these criteria, which are included in Table 4 as proposed milestones (and need to be specified in detail for a given project), address the critical aspects of the project and the question of what should be done to reduce these risks and to allow the project to enter the next phase. 

Other financial analyses that provide useful information as one seeks to determine whether the organization should proceed with the project include return on investment (ROI) and break-even (BE) analysis. ROI is the ratio of the net returns from the project divided by the cash outlays for the project. BE analysis seeks to determine how long it will take before the early cost outlays can be recouped. If the ROI is high and the BE point is small (i.e., reached quickly), the project becomes more desirable because cash flow estimates far into the future are much more difficult to forecast accurately. Table 2 is a simple spreadsheet that was used to determine economic feasibility. 

The interventions highlighted by the Commonwealth Fund report are sometimes isolated, sometimes funded demonstration projects, and often not integrated solutions that form an overarching organizational strategy. The use of one-off approaches, while informative, often threatens the achievement of sustainable results. Still, if the efforts are sustained, the financial benefits implied in Table 1-1 are clear reductions in unreimbursed costs of care, improved patient progress, enhanced bed utilization, and more efficient and effective treatment team involvement. 

---