ELABORATION OF AN ALLOCATION METHOD OF THE PRODUCT COSTS DURING ITS DEVELOPMENT PHASE ACCORDING TO THE COMPANY'S STRATEGIC PILLARS

In the product development field, the customer is a key piece, either by creating the market requirements that justifies the need for the product creation or, also, by judging the competitiveness of this certain product, what reflects in more competitive prices and, consequently, costs. In this way, the definition of the cost targets should be based on the competitive cost benchmarking. Hence, understanding the customer and market needs can be essential not only for defining the particularities of the product itself, but, also, to better manage the costs. In this scenario, specifically, the cost matter is related to the Target Setting phase. So, the main objective of the concerned undergraduate thesis is to develop a new methodological approach to be used during this phase to assist in the definition and achievement of the multiple cost targets for a new product by, basically, allocating them according to the customer’s judgment in what are called the strategic pillar attributes and comparing the obtained values to the competitor’s ones. Then, the method is going to be applied, as one practical example, on the Electrical & Electronics contents of an initiative of development of a new vehicle of the Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) group.