Cost estimation of functional and physical changes made to complex systems

Current cost estimation practices rely on statistically relating physical parameters of a system to historical cost data. Unfortunately, this method is unable to effectively communicate the increasing complexity of system design to cost data. Additionally, current cost estimation techniques have had a historical inability to produce credible and explainable results. It is often considered to be a "black art" with the recurring question: "Where did that number come from?" This thesis systematically links design and cost information together, and demonstrates the utility of that link by estimating the impact of functional and physical design changes on the life-cycle cost and determining key cost drivers. The ability to quickly estimate the cost impact of design changes is important for decision makers and serves as a medium of communication between customers and developers. Credible estimation is gained by intimately linking the axiomatic design framework to the already existing costing unit (or component) domain and providing design traceability. Development cost is predicted by determining the functional requirements (FRs) affected by a change in customer needs or constraints, then by determining the propagation of that change from FRs to design parameters (DPs) to costing units. The list of affected components and the magnitude of the impact on each component is found and then used to determine through a parallel iteration process model how much development labor will be necessary to implement those changes. The labor is directly related to development costs. A formal method to designing operations using axiomatic design is presented in this thesis. Operations exist due to the time-variant combinatorial complexity of FRs.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2005

Author dc:creator

• Jeziorek, Peter Nicholas, 1981-

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Nam P. Suh.

• 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/1721.1/30313

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/30313