JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #113 - June 2017 - 24

MANUFACTURING design-to-cost

lntegrating design and costing
Katharina BlecK, Head of Business Unit
Software Solutions, Conbility GmbH
MarKus Breiing, Research Assistant
Aachen Center for Integrative
Lightweight Production (AZL) of
RWTH Aachen University
Dr.-ing. Michael eMonts, CEO Aachen
Center for Integrative Lightweight
Production (AZL) of RWTH Aachen
University, Divisional Chief Engineer at
Fraunhofer IPT, Aachen
Dr.-ing. Kai Fischer, Divisional Director
Production Technology, Aachen
Center for Integrative Lightweight
Production (AZL) of RWTH Aachen
University, Scientific Director,
Institute of Plastics Processing (IKV)
at RWTH Aachen University

Costing as an innovation driver within product design is mostly underestimated,
even though its potential for cost saving is usually well known. Conbility
GmbH and the Aachen Center for Integrative Lightweight Production of RWTH
Aachen University (AZL) combine expertise in process costing and composite
production technology for the development of a new integrated design-to-cost
approach considering material and process-related costs within the early
product development phase.

he demand for lightweight concepts,
and thus the use of composites and
multi-material systems, is constantly
growing. Today, composites are not only
used in high-performance applications, but
also widely spread in highly cost-sensitive
branches, such as automotive or consumer
goods for instance. A core challenge within
the growing demand for composite applications is the reduction of the currently high
product design costs. To achieve a cost reduction within the design phase of composite parts, tools for comprehensive and early
part cost estimations are required and innovation processes need to be accelerated.
The limiting factors of iterative
design and cost evaluation
To compete, companies from all industries
need to continuously improve their flexibility, as well as their product quality and
variety, while consistently maintaining or
reducing their costs. Due to the progressive
globalization, increasing competition and
thus rising speed of innovation, the balancing act between cost efficiency and product
performance is challenging. In general, the
product development phase itself only accounts for a small share of product costs,

but already has significant influence [1].
Consequently, the degree of cost influence
is the highest when costing is integrated
right from the beginning of the product development process, as shown in Figure 1.
Several different costing approaches can be
used, such as target costing, process costing
or activity-based costing - principles from
business economics.
However, costing is mostly conducted by
costing experts, so that development engineers need to provide specific data to costing experts to perform a cost estimation
or calculation. Therefore, the challenge for
development engineers is to gather cost-rel-

Fig. 1:Degree
of cost influence
during the product
development process [2]

jec composites magazine / No113 June 2017

evant product and process information in
early stages of the product development
process. The demand for creativity is high
but the available cost-relevant information
is rare, especially regarding the design of
new products and production sequences.
This separation and the iterative process of
product design and costing are often inhibiting the innovation processes within companies.
Due to this iterative process, development
engineers often strive to modify a current
product for which cost-relevant information is known to satisfy the demand of the
costing department, rather than redesigning
it holistically. Thus, the level of creativity

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #113 - June 2017