Activity Based Cost Estimation System for Product Lifecycle Using Object Oriented Programming

The costs incurred during production, use, and disposal is mostly committed by early design decisions. Product designers started giving due consideration to life cycle cost implications of their design decisions. In this paper we developed a product lifecycle cost estimation system which can able to find the product lifecycle cost especially at early design stage in order to provide lifecycle cost information of a product efficiently and effectively to support decision makings. This system is built using object-oriented programming and linked to user interface. It is used to help designers for detailed cost information when needed at any stage of product development process. Activity based costing method is used to estimate the lifecycle cost through cost drivers of the product. Researchers presented and proposed cost estimation methods for one stage like manufacturing not all stages of lifecycle, certain manufacturing processes, specific category of products like machine parts and injection moulded part. A case study from local company is considered to validate the system for successful implementation. It is compared with the result of the same case study using concurrent cost module of DFMA software.