| Nowadays with the fast changing and globalizing market economy, the automotive industry is facing with increasingly fierce competition, which also brings the booming Chinese auto enterprises a greater challenge. To promote product development and accelerate the market launch of new products is particularly critical for an automotive company in getting accounted for a place in such highly competitive industry.Project management approach has been seen a mature application in the major auto companies from domestic and around the world. Efficient project management is the key to ensure successful completion of product development. Project cost management is an important part of project management, and with the lower revenue margins and the increased investment amount of the new products in the automotive industry, project cost management and control is occupying an increasingly important strategic position in the automotive research and development projects.In this thesis from the basic project cost management theory, some common cost management and control methods are highlighted. Then with the serving Shanghai GM Company and S8 project, the brief vehicle development process and project expense management, work breakdown structures and critical milestones of the project work scope are outlined, which act as the foreshadow of the following study of low-cost S8 automotive research and development project cost management and control methods.By using the practical experience of the low-cost vehicle S8 project, the thesis is to analyze the practical meanings of cost management and control methods of automotive development projects at the initiation and execution stages, to state the cost management tools of Design Concept Sheet, Execution Cost Analysis and Earned Value Method, to describe the cost management processes and practices in a project life cycle strategy, and to summarize a systematic and efficient cost management process for the reference of other similar automotive research and development projects. |
