Towards a short time “feature-based costing” for ship design

Cost is perhaps the most influential factor in the outcome of a product or service within many of today’s industries. Cost assessment during the early stage of ship design is crucial. It influences the go, no-go decision concerning a new development. Cost assessment occurs at various stages of ship design development. Economic evaluation as early as possible, in the design phase, is therefore vital to find the best pricefunction compromise for the ship projects. The authors have developed a feature-based costing model for cost effectiveness measurements intended to be used by ship designers for the real time control of cost process. The outcome is that corrective actions can be taken by management in a rather short time to actually improve or overcome predicted unfavourable performance.