Cost model for digital engineering tools

Most factories see the necessity and the high potentials to be gained when introducing integrated digital engineering tools into their planning and execution environment. Next to the design of suitable adaptions of the existing legacy systems in the IT landscapes, one of the biggest challenges they face is the situation based evaluation of the economics of any selection of digital engineering tools for the envisioned adaption. This paper discusses the applicability and adaptability of different variants of process costing methods for the evaluation of digital engineering IT landscapes as a major part of the digital factory economics method for an approach to a reproducible method for the evaluation of IT landscapes. Afterwards, the required adapted cost type plan is designed through a requirements analysis of the digital engineering specifics and an outlook is given for the upcoming work and validation. (C) 2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. Selection and peer-review under responsibility of Professor Pedro Filipe do Carmo Cunha