Integration of economic information with design and manufacturing systems

It is noted that most of the life-cycle cost of a product is determined by the decisions made during the preliminary product design stage. As competition causes a reduction in product lead times, an increase in demands for product quality, and an increase in the need for flexibility in product differentiation, the need for better cost estimation tools in the design stage also increases. During preliminary design, the cost implications of design decisions may not be computable with precision, but the information needed to make better informed cost tradeoffs can be made available to the designer. The authors present a methodology to compute the costs of product features for each of the stages in a product's life-cycle. They propose to integrate this methodology with an existing design system in order to give rapid feedback to the designer on the costs attributable to particular design features. They use these costs to provide economic feedback to the designer on the feasibility and economics of manufacture, assembly, testing, marketing, etc.<>