Cost Engineering for manufacturing: Current and future research

Abstract

The article aims to identify the scientific challenges and point out future research directions on Cost Engineering. The research areas covered in this article include Design Cost; Manufacturing Cost; Operating Cost; Life Cycle Cost; Risk and Uncertainty management and Affordability Engineering. Collected information at the Academic Forum on Cost Engineering held at Cranfield University in 2008 and further literature review findings are presented. The forum set the scope of the Cost Engineering research, a brainstorming was held on the forum and literatures were further reviewed to understand the current and future practices in cost engineering. The main benefits of the article include coverage of the current research on cost engineering from different perspectives and the future research areas on Cost Engineering.

Keywords:

• cost engineering
• life cycle cost
• risk
• uncertainty
• affordability engineering

Acknowledgements

The authors thank all the attendees in the Academic Forum of Cost Engineering in UK for presenting the research work, and discussing the scientific challenges of Cost Engineering.