Concurrent cost engineering for decisional and operational process enhancement in a foundry

A company needs to attract new customers by reducing their production costs, controlling the process risks and developing differentiation factors. This scientific contribution is based on methodological propositions and deployments using concurrent cost engineering. Therefore, the bases of this paper are to-understand the economical factors, their place within the industrial processes and to propose methodological solutions for a full cost engineering integration in the sand casting process, from negotiations to customer delivery. The approach is based on product and process definition, cost evaluation assistance, production impact simulation, process performance enhancement and total digital traceability for parts and tooling in a steel sand casting foundry. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.