A methodology for determining engineering costs and their effects on the development of product families

The goal of most firms is to deliver products that satisfy customer needs. Delivering a variety of differentiated products allows firms to satisfy the broadest range of customers. There is, however, a fundamental tension between this product differentiation and product cost. The use of product platforms allows a firm to reduce this tension, offering variety while also benefiting from the economics of mass production for shared components. The selection of components and subassemblies for platforming can have wide ranging effects on both product performance and cost. This thesis addresses the latter by presenting a methodology to assess product development costs, the amount of part sharing in a product family, and the effects of platforming on development, fabrication, and assembly costs for product families. Ordinal metrics are presented to assess the performance of product families. The methodology of process-based cost modeling, used to estimate product fabrication and assembly costs, is also posed. A method for determining the allocation of costs for parts and subassemblies shared among product family variants is outlined. A process-based cost model of the automotive product development process is presented. This model uses product part and subassembly characteristics to estimate the engineering effort required at various stages of the development process. Product development cycle time is also estimated. Linear regression analysis is used to determine which part and subassembly characteristics affect engineering effort. Additional development costs, such as computer hardware and software, overhead, and physical prototypes are also taken into account. Two automotive body architectures are analyzed to determine the cost savings from

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Mechanical Engineering.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2004

Author dc:creator

• Johnson, Michael DeShawn, 1977-

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Randolph E. Kirchain.

• Mechanical Engineering.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/17943

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/17943