Risk management has become incredibly complex, especially for capital purchase which requires through-life contract. Any source of risks should be identified and closely managed from the specification stage.
There should be sufficient information in the specification to minimise risks later in the through-life contract.
Here is something to consider:
- Make sure the parties to the contract are clearly identified. This is particularly important if a prime contractor is being used. Allow them to subcontract elements of the specification.
- Clearly identify any testing and quality assurance procedures and who will perform them.
- Document every important aspect of the specification including a project plan
- Include a reasonable limitation of liability clause in the contract and reference it in the specifica-tion
- Identify any guarantees that are needed
- Be clear on what insurance will and will not cover
- Make sure there is clear audit trail of any changes to the specification together with approvals LO 3, AC 3.2

Price Analysis is the process of deciding if the asking price for a product or service is fair and rea-sonable, without examining the specific cost and profit calculations the vendor used in arriving at the price. It is basically a process of comparing the price with known indicators of reasonableness. When adequate price competition does not exist, some other form of analysis is required. Some reasons that could affect adequate price competition are: specifications are not definitive, tolerances are restrictive, or production capacity limits those eligible to bid.
Examples of other forms of price analysis information include:
* Analysis of previous prices paid
* Comparison of vendor's price with the in-house estimate
* Comparison of quotations or published price lists from multiple vendors
* Comparisons with government agencies (such as GSA in the US) published prices A strike price is the set price at which a derivative contract can be bought or sold when it is exercised. For call options, the strike price is where the security can be bought by the option holder; for put options, the strike price is the price at which the security can be sold. Strike price is also known as the exercise price.
A cost driver is the direct cause of a cost and its effect is on the total cost incurred. For example, if you are to determine the amount of electricity consumed in a particular period, the number of units consumed determines the total bill for electricity. In such a scenario, the number of units of electricity consumed is a cost driver.

ANSI is the American National Standards Institute. It is responsible for providing technical stand-ards in the US LO 3, AC 3.1

Value Engineering (VE) is concerned with new products. It is applied during product development. The focus is on reducing costs, improving function or both, by way of teamwork-based product evaluation and analysis.
This takes place before any capital is invested in tooling, plant or equipment.
This is very significant, because according to many reports, up to 80% of a product's costs (throughout the rest of its life-cycle), are locked in at the design development stage. This is under-standable when you consider the design of any product determines many factors, such as tooling, plant and equipment, labour and skills, training costs, materials, shipping, installation, maintenance, as well as decommissioning and recycle costs.
The Kano model is a theory for product development and customer satisfaction developed in the 1980s by Professor Noriaki Kano, which classifies customer preferences into five categories. Both Kano model and Value Engineering aims at optimising new product, so they can be combined to-gether. CIPS L4M2 study guide consider Kano model is a tool of Value Engineering

Example of Kano model (source: Wikipedia)