Prototype-based life cycle costing in the R&D

Summary form only given as follows. In R&D 75 to 85% of accumulated product life cycle costs are determined, even though only 5 to 7% of these costs are incurred to this time. This gap between cost determination and cost accumulation and the fact that the development and marketing of new products is related to increasing investments, requires a life cycle oriented perspective in R&D: life cycle cost and life cycle profitability of an object have to be analyzed. Recent developments in technologies of rapid prototyping allow using more realistic prototypes in the early stages of R&D. The prototypes could be used as a means of communication. They help to explicate the implicit knowledge, which possess the representatives of the different functions, like R&D, marketing, logistics, etc., of the producer, the suppliers and the customer. So the prototypes are an excellent instrument to support the product life cycle cost and profitability analysis