In this paper, some of the important insights into the economics of CBDM were presented.
Specifically, most common pricing models deployed by CBDM service providers are reviewed. In
addition, the key cost factors and benefits are demonstrated using several real case studies.
Furthermore, a hypothetical application example was presented. Our results have shown that migrating
to the cloud has the potential to significantly reduce costs associated with engineering design and
manufacturing in small- and medium-volume production. The contribution of the research is that the
case studies provide service providers and consumers with comparative benchmarks to assess the costs
and benefits of adopting CBDM both qualitatively and quantitatively.
Future research will be focused on creating a multi-criteria decision support model for studying
strategic trade-offs in engineering design and manufacturing (e.g., pay-per-use or subscription, make
or buy) in the adoption of CBDM. A cost estimation model is essential to determine the costs
associated with software, hardware, data center, electricity, material, supply chain, and expert
consulting when migrating to the cloud. Incorporating the cost estimation model, the multi-criteria
decision support model will take complex economic factors, including return-on-investment (ROI),
net-present-value (NPV), payback-period, and benefit-to-cost ratio, into account for both service
providers and consumers. These measures are critical to decide when and under which conditions it is
better to adopt CBDM, thereby helping both SMEs and large-scale manufacturers access the economic
benefits of CBDM by performing a quantitative cost-benefit analysis.