SBIR Phase I: A New Approach for Enhancing Capital Investment Decisions by Optimizing Returns and Risks of Project Portfolios

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) project seeks to design an algorithmic approach and develop pilot software for optimizing the returns and associated risks of project portfolios to significantly improve the performance of capital finance and budgeting. This project is expected to achieve: an algorithmic approach for intelligently achieving near-optimal solutions for project portfolios in industries such as oil and gas, pharmaceuticals, bioengineering, heavy manufacturing, etc.; pilot software that incorporates this approach when integrated with simulation; key performance indicators to test the software; and a value proposition to assess the satisfaction of customer requirements. This new approach will provide a way to generate a model representation that is far more exploitable than those produced by past efforts. Coupled with other software, the outcome will provide a major advance in the ability to solve problems of project portfolio management effectively. The commercial applications anticipated for the ultimate software system are enhancement of the performance of capital budgeting and project portfolio management. While recognition of the limitations of current approaches is universal, none of the alternatives to these approaches has proved attractive enough to become widely embraced as a viable method of choice. Based on this observation and an estimate of the market size to be over $750M, a significant business opportunity exists.