Kostenmodel

Kostenmodell refers to a structured framework used to estimate, allocate, and manage costs for a product, project, or service across its lifecycle. It supports budgeting, pricing, decision making, and financial control. A kostenmodell typically expresses costs through cost drivers, cost pools, and cost equations, and distinguishes fixed versus variable costs as well as direct versus indirect costs.

Key components include an input set (quantities, unit costs, rates, overheads), a set of cost drivers (such as hours worked, material usage, or number of units), and a cost architecture that aggregates costs into categories such as materials, labour, overhead, and risk. Common methods are bottom-up estimation (detailed planning from work packages), top-down budgeting, parametric modeling (costs derived from functional relationships), and activity-based costing. Other approaches include standard costing, target costing, life-cycle costing, and total cost of ownership.

The process typically involves data collection from historical projects, supplier quotes, and engineering estimates; building the mathematical model; validating it against known costs; and performing sensitivity and scenario analyses. In some cases, stochastic methods such as Monte Carlo simulation are used to assess risk.

Applications span product development, manufacturing, IT and cloud cost estimation, procurement, and pricing decisions. Limitations include dependency on data quality and assumptions, potential complexity, and the need for ongoing maintenance, governance, and documentation to remain useful.