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Supervisor: Dr Essam Shehab e.shehab@cranfield.ac.uk and Dr. Paul Baguley – p.baguley@cranfield.ac.uk
Duration of award: 1 year
Award type: MSc by Research

Industrially sponsored studentship up to £14,000 p.a. (tax free) for 1 years plus fees*

Cranfield University have an exciting research opportunity with a large agricultural and construction equipment company. The successful applicant will aim to gather and analyse product data to develop an accurate product cost model than can be used by Finance, Sales, Engineering and Product Management.

Linear Regression Cost Models are key building blocks for developing family cost templates and whole Machine Cost Models. The LRCM’s (Linear Regression Cost Models) should be generic but specific to relevant product variables defined by Engineering, Sales and VOC (Voice of Customer).

A tool to show cost impact of these product variables and the inter relationships with each other, expressed as total cost is key to best overall design concept. Development of cost model with a user friendly easy slide bar interface with real time output based on key product specification user parameters will provide our partner with the engineering and commercial leadership necessary to succeed and grow in the product marketplace.

The overall project objectives are to:

1. Conduct comprehensive literature to identify the elements of Equipment Product Cost.
2. Identify the key design variables and their relations to geometric features.
3. Identify and relate the key product variables to design variables and express their relationships in terms of cost to produce LRCM’s
4. Build the product cost model from statistical analysis of historical data
5. Deal with uncertainty in manufacturing information
6. Quantify the risk attached due to uncertainties through Monte-Carlo analysis. It will be of high-fidelity, capable in dealing with design and product definitions.

The successful candidate will be based between the manufacturing and materials department at the Cranfield campus and our partner’s facility which is an hour away from Cranfield.

Application deadline: 15 October 2013

Start Date: ASAP 

Doctoral Training Centre

This higher research degree is associated with one of our Doctoral Training Centre, which is funded in part by the Research Councils and industry. A generic core skills training programme is provided for all research students. This is structured as a series of half day or full day events and acts as a social and networking forum to foster and develop Cranfield’s research student community.

Entry Requirements

Applicants should have a First or Second Class UK honours degree, or equivalent, in a relevant discipline such manufacturing and mechanical engineering. Strong manufacturing/cost engineering knowledge, good interpersonal and communication skills and computer literacy are also required.

Funding

*Supported by our partner, this studentship will cover the tuition fees and provide a bursary of up to £14,000 p.a for one year. Due to funding restrictions this studentship is for UK/EU students only. All non-EU nationals are very unlikely to be eligible for this funding under the Education (Fees and Awards) Regulations 1997. 

How to apply

If you are eligible to apply for this research studentship, please complete the online Application.

For further information contact us today:

School of Applied Sciences
T: +44 (0)1234 754086
E: appliedsciences@cranfield.ac.uk (via the Apply button below)

Please note that we are unable to consider submissions for specific research studentships that fall outside of the stated eligibility criteria.