Design and improvement of product using intelligent function model based cost estimating

Design is one of the most important activities in new product development. While the concepts of design for manufacturability and concurrent engineering have made significant advances in integrating the design function with other areas in the firm, there are still major gaps in timely and accurate costing information available to designers. Inappropriate design could result in high redesign cost and delay in product realization. The generation of design and improvement is a time-consuming and mentally exhaustion process. It involves combining design features to generate as much potential design as possible. As not all features combinations are feasible, decision-makers have to narrow down the potential solutions and subsequently select appropriate design for further development. This research suggests an intelligent function model based cost estimating for design and improvement of product. It is composed of three steps aiming at the low cost design of the product. The first step is setting up the optimal cost which is the engineering target based on the function. The second step is estimating the current functional cost according to the unit through the function analysis for basic model and quantitative. The second step estimates the current functional cost according to the unit through the functional analysis of basic model and quantitative. In the third step, the design of a unit is reviewed according to the priority of the difference between the optimal cost and the functional cost. Arranging the unit design parameter, the best design option is set-up according to the level. Also, it was actually proved through the application of "S" company. Crown Copyright (C) 2010 Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.