Calculating product costs professionally

The large automotive OEMs, however, have long been aware that the popular doctrine by which supply and demand alone set prices and ensuring sufficient competition is enough to obtain optimum savings is not the whole story. Outside of the automotive sector, too, the realisiation that value-for-money products can only be developed when there is detailed knowledge about their costs is encouraging more and more companies to try and reacquire this in-depth understanding of their components. Classical mechanical engineering; aerospace; medical technology – there are many sectors in which costs are once again being analysed, simulated, and optimized in detail. These costs are then compared to benchmarks set by competitors’ products or they are part of an open-book product philosophy.