Functional thinking in cost estimation through the tools and concepts of axiomatic design

There has been an increasing demand for cost estimation tools which aid in the reduction of system cost or the active consideration of cost as a design constraint. The existing tools are currently incapable of anticipating the unseen or latent effects of design changes made in an effort to cut cost. This paper presents an example of how the tools and concepts of axiomatic design theory can be integrated with the parametric cost estimation process, and then presents a series of arguments for why tools such as these which examine the functional architecture of a system are useful for optimizing cost at the preliminary design level.

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

• Odhner, Lael Ulam, 1980-

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/1721.1/32772

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/32772