This work aims to identify the critical production costs, related to raw materials and labor, of ordered inflatable-based products without standardization in order to develop a quantitative model to predict these costs accurately in the early project stage, within the budget step. In order to achieve this goal, it was necessary to understand the production processes and the raw materials, as well as to study the principal theoretical aspects related to cost estimating techniques and methods, cost estimating models, model selection, and validation. Therefore, it is intended to develop a multiple linear regression model, applied to historical quantitative data, to estimate each critical variable concerning the quantity of the main raw material and the labor times for critical processes. Six models were analyzed, in which two models are identified for each critical variable such as the linear meters value of the main raw material used in the product, the main raw material cut time involved in the product and the sew time required by the product. The models were evaluated, selected, and validated, defining the best model for each critical variable. The model parameters were obtained using a train dataset and, afterwards, the results of the selected models were validated using a test dataset. The obtained results, through the proposed methodology, were evaluated and proved to be reliable for use in the early stage of product development within the budget step.
