Technical Paper
An Economic Assessment of Alternative Manufacturing Processes for the Camshaft
1990-09-01
901741
As material, labor, and energy costs have increased, there has been a growing need to look for more cost effective processing methods to manufacture engineering components. A study was undertaken to assess the competitive position of alternative processing routes for high volume production of the automotive camshaft. The techniques employed in the course of the study were Technical Cost Modeling and Multi-At-tribute Utility Analysis (MAUA). The use of cost modeling and attribute analysis offers a novel system-based approach to treating the problem of materials substitution. A computerized spreadsheet is used for writing the model, which simulates the cost of the manufacturing process. MAUA, a decision analysis technique that has been successfully applied to materials selection problems, helps clarify the importance of critical performance attributes to the materials selection problem for a given application, and then helps rank the materials based on their acceptability.