An Accuracy Investigation of Product Cost Estimation in Automotive Die Manufacturing

Automotive die manufacturers face the constant challenge of producing qualitative products while having to reduce costs. However, cost reduction measures are rather insignificant during the actual manufacturing process as the most important cost-impacting decisions are taken during the design phase. Cost estimation methods attempt to determine the production cost already in the design phase; the cost can be broken down and therefore the plan times of manufacturing processes can be pre-calculated, thus enabling early capacity decisions. Many researchers have been focusing for decades on developing efficient cost estimation methods. Yet their scarce access to cost information meant that most of the developed methods could not be evaluated with real data and thus their implementation in practice being challenged. This paper reviews and classifies cost estimation methods and investigates the accuracy of the estimate based onpractical application in 190 cases. The overall aim is to determine the accuracy level of the studied methods in practice and therefore identify their application fields.