Requirement- and cost-driven product development process

Abstract

This paper presents an approach, which enables a cost and requirement driven control of the design process. It is based on the concept of Property-Driven Development (PDD) [WeWD-03]. Integrated in the approach are well established tools like Target Costing and Value Analysis as well as methods of design for requirements. In the authors' approach, the product development process is controlled by an ongoing target/actual ('Soll/Ist') comparison between target properties and the state of properties currently achieved. For each property, depending on the fulfilment, quality ratings from the customer's point of view are assigned. The aim of the product development process is the maximisation of the sum of these quality ratings. This aim can be realised based on the PDD approach, because it supports the engineer/designer by explicitly representing the interdependencies between the properties (that have to be optimized) and the characteristics that influence these properties.