This is the seventh in a series of National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)

reports on recommended standards related to applying economic evaluation methods to

building decisions.

  The first four dealt with the theory and application of economic

methods of analysis, including life-cycle costing, net benefits, benefit-to-cost and

savings-to-investment ratios, internal rate of return, and payback.  These reports were

used as the bases for standard practices published by the American Society for Testing

and Materials (ASTM).  The fifth NIST report was a recommended guide that focused on

techniques that account for uncertainty in project input values and techniques that

measure the risk that a project will have a less favorable economic outcome than what is

desired or expected.  ASTM used it as the basis for a standard guide for selecting among

techniques for handling uncertainty and risk in project evaluation.  The sixth NIST report

was a recommended classification of building elements, UNIFORMAT II, for ensuring

consistency in the format used for reporting the economic evaluation of projects over

time and from project to project.  ASTM used the report as the basis for a standard

classification of building and site-related elements.