Cost Estimation in Product Development: Academic Research and Commercial Systems Evaluation

During the past three decades, cost estimation systems have experienced some major technological innovations and paradigm shifts both in industry and academic research. There are numerous papers available reporting on research findings and the techniques used in cost estimation. This paper presents a review of current academic work and an evaluation of the available commercial cost estimation systems. However, there are few publications available covering current research and commercial applications, in particular in the area of cost estimation in product development. The aim of this paper is to provide the reader with an understanding of cost estimation techniques from the perspective of the past and present, their applications and commercial practice to support the product development processes.