Manufacturing Cost Estimation Using Neural Network

The increasing intensity of cost based competition has promoted the development of many cost estimation models, especially for mass production products where new processes are continuously implemented in order to reduce the manufacturing cost. So for a manufacturer became crucial the evaluation of a product cost in order to make an economic order for a production stock in this very competitive market. To model this ever changing production system it is not an easy task. This study proposes a feature based approach for the cost estimation based on the use of neural network. An application of this approach has been developed for a mass production company of automotive cylinders.