Integrated real-time feature based costing

A program storage device readable by a machine, tangibly embodying a program of instructions executable by the machine to perform a method for automatically estimating the optimized cost of a part during the course of design of the part on a CAD system by a designer, the method comprising:

• extracting parametric features of a current design from the CAD system;
• identifying manufacturing cost drivers on the basis of the parametric features;
• translating manufacturing cost drivers into costs using process models;
• simultaneously optimizing costs with respect to a plurality of operations within specified machine constraints using an algorithm with dynamically linked Detached Linked Structures (DLS) to obtain estimates of optimized costs;
• and
• feeding back to the designer an estimate of optimized costs as an output display on an output device.

A system for automatically estimating the optimized cost of a part during the course of design of the part on a computer-aided design (CAD) system by a designer, the system comprising:

• means executed by a processor for extracting parametric features of a current design from the CAD system;
• means executed by a processor for identifying manufacturing cost drivers on the basis of the parametric features;
• means executed by a processor for translating manufacturing cost drivers into costs using process models;
• means executed by a processor for simultaneously optimizing costs with respect to a plurality of operations within specified machine constraints using an algorithm with dynamically linked Detached Linked Structures (DLS) to obtain estimates of optimized costs;
• and
• means executed by a processor for feeding back to the designer an estimate of optimized costs as an output display on an output device.

A computer program product for automatically estimating the optimized cost of a part during the course of design of the part on a computer-aided design (CAD) system by a designer, the computer program product comprising a computer usable medium having computer readable program code thereon, the computer readable program code comprising:

• program code for extracting parametric features of a current design from the CAD system;
• program code for identifying manufacturing cost drivers on the basis of the parametric features;
• program code for translating manufacturing cost drivers into costs using process models;
• program code for simultaneously optimizing costs with respect to a plurality of operations within specified machine constraints using an algorithm with dynamically linked Detached Linked Structures (DLS) to obtain estimates of optimized costs;
• and
• program code for feeding back to the designer an estimate of optimized costs as an output display on an output device.