A Knowledge Formalization Approach for Manufacturing Cost Estimation

Target pricing is a methodology to develop competitive products by determining the target price from market analyses. To guarantee the right profit margin, target cost is a direct consequence of target price. In this situation, the manufacturing cost estimation at the design phase becomes an essential task. The paper presents a framework for collecting knowledge required for estimating manufacturing cost of components. The framework consists of: (i) a cost break-down structure used for splitting manufacturing costs, (ii) a data model for col-lecting that knowledge required for defining manufacturing processes, (iii) a data model for the collecting that knowledge required for computing the manufactur-ing cost of each operation within a manufacturing process and (iv) a workflow for analytically estimating cost of components. The framework has been mainly conceived for managing components realized through forming and shaping pro-cesses. The result presented in this paper guarantee the following benefits: (i) knowledge elicitation on product manufacturing cost, (ii) knowledge sharing among design/engineering departments, and (iii) knowledge capitalization for de-cision-making process.