Cost of Ownership as a tool in the product development – A study at MB Wafertec

Abstract: This Master Thesis has been carried out in collaboration with the Swiss-based company MBWafertec, a part of the Meyer Burger Group. It is a company active in the photovoltaic businesswhere they develop and produce cutting machines. The purpose of the thesis was to make a Costof ownership (COO) tool that simulates their customers’ different costs when producing siliconwafers with one of two process types available, the older Slurry. The results of these simulationswere then intended to be compared to the same results of the other process type, the newer DW(Diamond Wire), from a cost and environmental view. Alongside this, the product developmentprocess of the company was intended to be evaluated from a COO-approachable point of view.As a base for fulfilling both the purposes of the thesis a literature study within COO andsurrounding lifecycle theories was made.In order to develop a COO-tool, meetings and informal discussions with personnel at thecompany were made together with gathering data from the company database, all made in aniterative fashion. This resulted in an Excel based tool where the results of simulations of threedifferent sizes of production were presented in figures which indicated a clear advantage in costsand energy consumption in favor of the newer process. The parallel evaluation of the productdevelopment process was made by conducting semi-structured interviews with key persons atMB Wafertec. The results of the interviews were then compared PLM theory and the methodValue Oriented Life Cycle Costing (VOLCC). This displayed several positive correlation pointsas well as others that can be improved. The most important improvement points are the currentPDM system together with the lack of consistent structure in the usage of COO in a functionevaluation level.The main recommendations are that the continued work in this area should be focused on tryingto predict future prices and cost drivers of particularly the slurry-mix and DW (the wire itself)which affect the COO relatively much. This should be done in order to foresee how a futureCOO looks and out of this see where the product development should be focused. Anotherrecommendation is to evaluate the company’s specific needs of a PDM system and then start thework of implementing it, alongside with implementing a COO-integrated VOLCC method.