Control and integration of costs in aeronautical design projects.

Summary This thesis work focuses on the control and integration of costs in aeronautical design projects. The study of Design to Cost practices (name of the cost control method used in some companies) at Airbus and Eurocopter (two aeronautical companies of the EADS group) allows us to identify three classes of dysfunctions related to cost control in the design projects of these two companies: dysfunctions related to the Design to Cost business, those related to the project context and those related to the actors. We propose to solve some dysfunctions related to the Design to Cost business by integrating knowledge management in the design cost control process. The methods and tools related to cost control methods can be classified into three main processes: target management, management of cost reduction opportunities and monitoring / steering. We experiment the proposed Design to Cost process on the management of cost reduction opportunities. For this we propose three tools. The first one is a typology of changes that allows to characterize each cost reduction opportunity according to the changes it induces. The second is a list of cost drivers that helps to identify the parameters whose modification significantly influences the costs. Finally, the third is a model whose implementation aims to exploit past opportunities: OSIRIS (Optimiser for Saving Idea Reuse). The contributions have been validated via a computer prototype tested by the members of the Design to Cost Airbus team.