A Lifecycle-Cost Model for Set-based Concept Testing

This article presents a lifecycle-cost model for set-based concept testing. The proposed model calculates the optimum number of concepts to be prototyped before committing to a single concept and developing detail design. In the proposed model, a product lifecycle is divided into four stages (marketing, concept generation, concept testing, and design and manufacturing) and a product lifecycle cost is expressed as a sum of costs of these stages. Based on modeling assumptions in this article, the expected lifecycle cost is described by the number of concepts to be prototyped, costs of lifecycle stages, and engineers’ experiences. The optimum number of prototypes to be prototyped, which is a function of parameters describing the costs of lifecycle stages and engineers’ experiences, is obtained by minimizing the expected lifecycle cost.