Integrated value engineering: Consideration of total cost of ownership for better concept decision

National and international competition demands companies to sell products with maximum value for the customer, which is reflected by high functionality for the customer for low costs within the company. Approaches in cost management support practitioners in developing valuable products and to reduce costs. The relatively new approach of integrated value engineering (IVE) uses matrices to combine target costing and value engineering in a structural model. The approach currently uses manufacturing costs to find optimization potentials in the product's value and to valuate different concepts of new products. However, the customer's utilization costs during the use phase of the product play an important role on the decision for buying a new product. The amount of these costs can be already influenced during the development of the product. Therefore this publication discusses an approach to extend the concept of IVE by utilization costs. Several concepts from the field of lifecycle costing and total cost of ownership are presented in a literature review. Main ideas are integrated in the structural model of the IVE approach to allow for a better decision on most valuable concepts for the customer. The benefits and limitations of the resulting approach are shown in a case study.