An alternative to feasibility studies when launching a new R&D project (after having chosen the physical characteristics of your project) is to ask for an online query. Information is provided immediately on the online query pop-up window and provides you with :
Option 1: only an estimate of the budget required to complete the R&D project if you have specified the base cost that you want to reach for this project.
Option 2: an estimate of the budget required to complete a project + an estimate of the base cost of the future R&D project ; in this case, you ask the online query to give you the “lowest possible cost”; once the online query has provided you with this cost, you can specify it in your R&D project (“Specify a base cost of this project”).
The main advantages of online queries are that information is provided to you immediately and is free (you do not have to pay for it). Their main drawbacks are that no more than five queries may be made in any given period and that their results (base cost and budget) are usually over-estimated by as much as 15% (meaning that the “lowest possible cost” you are provided with in option 2 is actually not the minimum base cost).
Important: if you change the specifications of your project (characteristics and/or requested base cost) after you have run the online query, you will no longer be guaranteed that the project will be completed within one period at the budget given by the query. In this case, you should run a new query to adjust your decisions according to the new specifications.