My current role is technical, so it is difficult to make direct connections to budget performance reporting in my job. Although, I do track and report budget performance in a slightly different way. One very important aspect of space hardware to consider during the design process is weight. We take every possible measure to reduce weight due to extremely tight total mass requirements from the launch provider. To keep track of our weight we maintain a payload mass budget through the design and build phases. Initially, we develop a static mass budget which is determined based on the programmatic requirements and CAD estimates from the initial design phase. This is the baseline that we use to determine the expected overall payload weight and make decisions on what can or cannot be installed. As the design matures and we move into the build phase we can start to take actual hardware measurements to determine variances between the physical weight of the component and the expected weight. It is crucial to continually monitor this to determine whether we are exceeding the maximum payload weight for the launch vehicle. In addition, management also maintains a flexible budget which is based on the actual weight measured during a build phase. According to the textbook, with respect to financial budgets, "the flexible budget is based on actual sales volume, all differences between the flexible budget and actual performance must result from operations rather than from differences in sales volume" (Davis & Davis, 2020). In this comparison, the difference between the static and flexible mass budget identifies issues with the build, components that are not factored into the CAD design, tool accuracy errors, etc. At the end of the build, we are responsible for providing a mass budget report to determine the variances and justify any unfavorable variances and why they are acceptable.

What are your thoughts?