Development of a Pilot Study Simulation to Investigate the Impact of Target Costing on Team Dynamics and Design Aesthetics

Target costing is widely accepted across the automobile manufacturing industries such as the Toyota Corporation followed by other manufacturing companies such as Nissan, Chrysler, Boeing, Sony, etc. However, its use in the construction industry has been limited. The application of target costing in the construction industry has been referred to as Target Value Design (TVD), which forms an important fragment of the whole lean delivery system, Integrated Project Delivery. For the purpose of studying the team dynamics and the impact of cost on aesthetics, this research is split in to the following two parts.

1. Conducting simple experiments /simulations with students, such as designing and building a product to target cost to explore the impact of cost on the design of the product and the team dynamics.
2. Exploring the challenges faced by the teams while working on TVD through literature review and Focus Group Interviews with construction industry professionals with experience in the TVD process. Similar to other lean simulations like the airplane game and the dice game, aimed at demonstrating the impact of lean, this simulation of designing a two feet (2?) tall wine glass holder with materials such as paper, Styrofoam plates, cups etc. is an attempt to understand the challenges of designing to target cost process. The simulation conducted is to mirror the real world TVD process. Results of the experiment conclude that cost does not have a negative influence on the design. There is no correlation between the high costs and better design, that is, the most expensive solutions are not always the best solutions. However, correlation existed between the target cost and the design aesthetics. Indeed, cost as a constraint aided the team in focusing on the design and developing solutions within the project constraints. The results of the experiment are similar to the practice of the TVD in reality as case studies and interviews arrive at similar conclusions. Finally, the experiment depicted that collaborating and working in a team might result in arguments but generates competitive design solutions without affecting the team dynamics. The research is of significance to construction industry professionals and owners to investigate the challenges and implications of implementing target costing in designing to target cost.