Related Resources: Design for Manufacturing

Design to Cost and Life Cycle Cost

Engineering Applications and Design
Design for Manufacturing and Assembly

Design to Cost and Life Cycle Cost
Advisory Group for Aerospace Research and Development
339 pages

Premium Membership Required to view Document/Book

Open: Design to Cost and Life Cycle Cost

PREFACE

The increased complexity of aircraft, growing social requirements for government funds and high rates of inflation have strongly focussed attention on aircraft systems costs. Any well-engineered system includes minimum cost as a criterion to be considered along with performance requirements. It has always been recognized that this cost means overall cost to the user including fuel and maintenance as well as initial cost. Some products may be built to a minimum first cost without regard to later costs incurred as a result of initial cost savings. Presumably if this is overdone,the marketplace will shun the product and a more rational balanced design will win out. In the very special marketplace for commercial and military aircraft, however, long product life and the small number of actual builders, usually one for the military case, leaves the user of a poor design severely penalized for a long period of time. To help avoid major errors of this sort attempts have been made to formalize logical processes for optimizing costs, both initially and over the life of the product. The former has been called Design to Cost (DTC) and the overall cost analysis has been defined as Life Cycle Cost.

This document is from the symposium to explore the state of the technology of OTC and LCC was held by the AGARD Flight Mechanics Panel in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

At symposium to explore the state of the technology of Design to Cost (DTC) and Life Cycle Cost (LCC), twenty-six papers were presented in four sessions on: LCC Methodology and its Relation to Specifications and Requirements; Impact of LCC Analysis on Total System Design; Cost Control of Operations and Support; and LCC of Subsystems and Components. These papers give a good overview of the approaches used in both industry and government to control costs and to optimize the engineering design to produce the most efficient aircraft possible. It seems clear that DTC is an incorrect expression since having set down specified requirements, it may be impossible to meet some equally tightly specified cost. The best one can hope for is the lowest cost to do the specified job. The question of the usefulness or the correctness of the specified requirements is often not attacked but it may be more important than all the DTC and LCC efforts to reduce life cycle costs. Once the requirements are laid down, the controllability of life cycle costs is greatest in the early conceptual phase, when uncertainty in cost estimation is largest. Hence, creative advanced design is a key for cost control. The overall theme in these papers is determining and minimizing costs. Engineering for reliability, maintainability, low fuel consumption and good performance does not necessarily increase initial costs but in many cases trade-off studies are required to ascertain the cost/benefit ratio of a design feature.

TOC

SESSION I

- LCC METHODOLOGY AND ITS RELATION TO SPECIFICATIONS AND REQUIREMENTS
LIFE CYCLE COST ANALYSIS (LCCA) IN MILITARY AIRCRAFT PROCUREMENT
by R.Chisholm I
O&S COST VISIBILITY IN EARLY DESIGN
by R.E.Houts 2
US ARMY DESIGN-TO-COST EXPERIENCE
by R.B.Lewis 11, E.P.Laughlin and F.E.Spring 3.
A REVIEW AND ASSESSMENT OF SYSTEM COST REDUCTION ACTIVITIES
by W.E.Lamar 4
DESIGN TO LIFE CYCLE COST RESEARCH
by F.T.Carlson 5 Ii
IMPACT ON SYSTEM DESIGN OF COST ANALYSIS OF SPECIFICATIONS
AND REQUIREMENTS
by H.Grieser .6
EVOLUTION OF TECHNIQUES FOR LCC ANALYSIS
by J.M.Jones 7

SESSION II

- IMPACT OF LCC ANALYSIS ON TOTAL SYSTEM DESIGN
THE HORNET PROGRAM - A DESIGN TO LIFE CYCLE COST CASE STUDY
by R.D.Dighton 8
DESIGN TO COST AND THE F-16 MULTIROLE FIGHTER
by W.M.Rowell 9
STRUCTURAL INTEGRATION AS A MEANS OF COST REDUCTION
by P.E.Seibert 10
DESIGN-TO-COST ET TECHNOLOGIES NOUVELLES
par F.Cordie I I
Paper 12 Cancelled
ORGANIZING A DESIGN-TO-COST PROGRAM
by R.Taxsinari 13
A NEW METHOD FOR ESTIMATING TRANSPORT AIRCRAFT DIRECT
OPERATING COSTS
by K.Grayson 14
LE --DESIGN TO COST" APPLIQUE A L'HELICOPTERE AS 350
par R.Mouille 15

SESSION III

COST CONTROL OF OPERATIONS AND SUPPORT
RELIABILITY CENTERED MAINTENANCE
by F.S.Nowlan 16
SOME ENGINEERING ASPECTS OF LIFE CYCLE COSTING
by G.W.Bleasdale 17
BALANCED DESIGN - MINIMUM COST SOLUTION
by E.Huie and H.F.Harris 18
DESIGN TO COST AND SYSTEMS LCC
by K.Wickel 19
IMPACT OF MAINTAINABILITY ON LIFE CYCLE COSTS
by G.R.Thornber 20

SESSION IV

- LCC OF SUBSYSTEMS AND COMPONENTS
ESTIMATION OF RELATIVE TOTAL COST FOR AIRCRAFT SYSTEMS
by J.Bollmann and H.Lankenau 21
MISE EN OEUVRE DES CONCEPTS I)E REDUCTION DES COUTS CHEZ
MESSIER-HISPANO-BUGATTI
par M.Eslinger 22
SUMMARY OF AGARD LECTURE SERIES No.100 -
METHODOLOGY FOR CONTROL OF LIFE CYCLE COSTS FOR AVIONICS SYSTEMS
by I.J.Gabelman 23
DESIGN TO COST VIEWED AGAINST THE ACHIEVEMENT OF OPTIMUM
SYSTEM CAPABILITY
by R.G.Rose 24
AGARD LECTURE SERIES No. 107 -
THE APPLICATION OF DESIGN TO COST AND LIFE CYCLE COST TO AIRCRAFT
ENGINES - A SUMMARY
by E.J.Jones 25
THE ROLE OF ADVANCED TECHNOLOGY ON TURBINE ENGINE LIFE
CYCLE COSTS
by R.F.Panella. M.A.Barga and R.G.McNally 26
COST CONSIDERATIONS OF ENGINE FUEL CONTROL SYSTEMS
by A.J.Eccleston 27