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In a globally competitive world, companies and countries derive their competitive edge and sustainable economic growth by innovating. For developed innovations to be of any economic value to inventors, they must result in a company/country having a competitive advantage.In the manufacturing industry, a country weak in innovation will be a target for foreign direct investment only if it provides low-cost competitive advantage. Such competitive advantage alone does not lead to sustainable economic growth. It has been well established that over 70% of the total development cost of a product is frozen during the design phase, although this phase accounts for less than 7% of the total cost. It is thus important to determine the cost structure of new developed manufacturing process if it is to be adopted by manufacturing enterprises and compete with processes that are already being used. In this book manufacturing cost of semi-solid metal casting process is compared with two other net-near shape processes; die casting and hot forging. Estimated engineering costs are then classified accordingly as types of accounting costs.

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Dr. Tlale graduated with the following degrees from the University of KwaZulu-Natal: BSc (Mech) Eng, MSc (Eng) and PhD. He also holds an MBA from the University of Pretoria (U.P.). He has published extensively international, and provided consulting services to the south African industry and goverment.

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