One of the major problems in the engineering world out there is talking apples and apples. This simply applies to not only simple daily conversations, but cost acquisition programs, where you would have the sales team of a company work with a customer and try to break down the proposed cost. After the breakdown, and understanding of the different elements, and the inherent risk is where you realize that value of the service/product.
As UML 2.1 picks up in momentum, it would be a good time to look into utilizing this powerful tool to bridge this everlasting problem of misconception. I think if one can model a clear cost model for a product, then that creates a dialog medium, which will save lots of time/effort/resources and adds credibility/transparency/detail to the bidirectional conversation.
The only problem I see is that this methodology is easier said than done. Although I’m slowly preparing myself for all this model analysis and architecture analysis work, it is not very clear how I would go forward, even with all the software packages and modules out there. However, I do think that being in Stevens would prosper my chances of arriving at this delicious answer.