Cost estimation in mechanical production: The Cost Entity approach applied to integrated product engineering

A new approach for product cost estimating in mechanical production is proposed within the framework of integrated product engineering. The approach introduces the new concept of Cost Entity. It is made necessary due to the current context of growth of indirect costs, especially in manufacturing. The objective, i.e. establishing a tight link between technical variables (or manufacturing features) and economic variables (modeled as Cost Entities), requires to model the reasoning procedure and associated knowledge related to cost estimating. To achieve this, two models, a Product Model and a Costgrammes Model, are presented and used to represent and capitalize technical knowledge. The cost estimating reasoning procedure, that takes into account alternative process plans of a product, is modeled and solved by a constraint satisfaction problem (CSP). The solutions of the problem are ranked by economic satisfaction order. The case of a Termoz part is used as an illustrative manufacturing example.