Use of Parametric Models in an Economic Evaluation Step During the Design Phase

Eighty per cent of the costs of a product are determined by decisions taken by the designers. Moreover, it is during the design phase that the possibilities of reducing the total cost are the most important. Early studies of alternative solutions are design modifications are less expensive and more efficient. However, in the design phase, the product is never completely defined, and the conditions and means of production are not fully known. Therefore, it is necessary to provide the designer with efficient cost estimation tools adapted to the available knowledge about the product. After having emphasised the limits of traditional estimation tools during the design phase, this paper presents different approaches to the cost estimation problem of a partially defined product. These approaches are based on different part descriptions. We have successfully tested these methods for the estimation of manufacturing costs for prismatic parts.