DEVELOPMENT OF INTELLIGENT MODEL FOR ESTIMATING MANUFACTURING COST IN SHEET METALWORKING

In modern manufacturing, high product quality, manufacturing flexibility and low production cost are main keys to competitiveness. For this reason, manufacturing cost is always the point of primary concern. Basically, the manufacturing cost of a sheet metal part is determined by its shape complexity, perimeter, size, a number of design features, material properties and thickness. If these data can be obtained and considered in a design stage, estimation of manufacturing cost during the early design stage will be a feasible task. This research submits a framework for estimating the manufacturing cost in sheet metalworking. The manufacturing cost estimation method is based on Artificial Neural Networks (ANN). ANN is helpful in the situations when conventional linear regression does not work. The obtained results have been considered, discussed and appropriate conclusions have been drawn.