Contemporary Engineering Economics, Global Edition

Book Preface

What is “Contemporary” About Engineering Economics?

Decisions made during the engineering design phase of product development determine the majority of the costs associated with the manufacturing of that product (some say that this value may be as high as 85%). As design and manufacturing processes become more complex, engineers are making decisions that involve money more than ever before. Thus, the competent and successful engineer in the twenty-first century must have an improved understanding of the principles of science, engineering, and economics, coupled with relevant design experience. Increasingly, in the new world economy, successful businesses will rely on engineers with such expertise.

Economic and design issues are inextricably linked in the product/service life cycle. Therefore, one of my strongest motivations for writing this text was to bring the realities of economics and engineering design into the classroom and to help students integrate these issues when contemplating many engineering decisions. Of course, my underlying motivation for writing this book was not simply to address contemporary needs, but to address as well the ageless goal of all educators: to help students to learn. Thus, thoroughness, clarity, and accuracy of presentation of essential engineering economics were my aim at every stage in the development of the text.

New to the Sixth Edition

Much of the content has been streamlined to provide materials in depth and to reflect the challenges in contemporary engineering economics. Some of the highlighted changes are as follows:

• All the chapter opening vignettes—a trademark of Contemporary Engineering Economics— have been updated or completely replaced with more current and thought-provoking issues. Selection of vignettes reflects the important segment of global economy in terms of variety and scope of business as well. With more than 80% of the total GDP (Gross Domestic Product) in the United States provided by the service sector, engineers work on various economic decision problems in the service sector as well. For this reason, many engineering economic decision problems from the service sector are presented in this sixth edition.

• Excel spreadsheet modeling techniques are incorporated into various economic decision problems to provide many “what-if” solutions to key decision problems.

• About 20% of end-of-chapter problems are either new or revised. There are a total of 618 end-of-chapter problems and 65 short case-study questions. There are also 196 fully worked-out examples and 40 carefully selected and fully worked out Fundamentals of Engineering Exam Review Questions in Appendix A.