The approach presented in this paper enables interdisciplinary design teams to make their concept decision based on an early, but meaningful cost estimate of competing product concept alternatives. This assists in developing and producing products that are very likely not to exceed today’s tight target costs. The method considers the heterogeneity of mechatronical systems by integrating costs resulting from cross-domain product and process interfaces. Methods for early cost estimation from the different engineering domains are integrated to determine the one-off (development) costs as well as the running (production) costs of a mechatronical product. Additionally, the method presented supports a transparent and continuous preparation of the product and process information available in the early stages of product development. Due to the direct linkage between costs and system elements as well as product functions via a combined DSM/DMM (Design Structure Matrix/Domain Mapping Matrix) approach, cost reduction potentials can be systematically identified. Impacts of resulting product structure modifications on the total product costs can be traced easily, leading to a simplified cost estimation of product concept variants.     «

The approach presented in this paper enables interdisciplinary design teams to make their concept decision based on an early, but meaningful cost estimate of competing product concept alternatives. This assists in developing and producing products that are very likely not to exceed today’s tight target costs. The method considers the heterogeneity of mechatronical systems by integrating costs resulting from cross-domain product and process interfaces. Methods for early cost estimation from the d...     »