A Decision Support System for Advance Composite Maufacturing Cost Estimation

The increased use of advanced composites in aerospace manufacturing has led to the development of new production processes and technology The implementation of advanced composites manufacturing technology is poorly served by traditional cost accounting methods, which distort costs by using inappropriate volume-based allocations of overhead. Activity-based costing has emerged as a methodology, which provides accurate allocation of costs to products or activities by their usage of company resources. Better designs may also be produced if designers could evaluate the cost implications of their choices early in the design process. This paper describes a methodology whereby companies can improve the quality of product cost estimation at the conceptual design phase using intelligent searching and arrangement of existing accounting data enabling designers to access the activity cost information more readily. This concept has a considerable scope for application in industry because it will allow companies, to make better use of the said information already recorded in their information system.