Glossary

Actual Tool	A tool that is either available at the machining area being modeled or available in a machine tool catalog. Actual tools usually have a make (for example, Kennemetal) and a model (for example, Corobore 860). A particular model is available in a series of sizes (usually diameters).
Amortized Investment	The amortized sum of all fixed costs. Fixed costs must be incurred before the start of production. In aPriori, all fixed costs are amortized to the individual part or assembly by dividing the total, up-front cost for the fixed cost (the capital cost) by the Total Product Volume.
Annual Volume	The total number of parts or assemblies of a specific design produced in one year.
Arc Welding	A welding process that uses the concentrated heat of an electric arc between an electrode and the base material to melt the metals at the welding point. Depending on the material to be welded, either direct or alternating current may be used for the arc, and consumable or non-consumable electrodes.
Assembly	An assembly of parts as defined by the MCAD system part/assembly tree. Normally, an assembly has more than one part. Technically, however, the MCAD system might allow an assembly with only one part. Parts in assembly are oriented to one another and secured by an assembly process, such as welding or snap-fit. An assembly cost object comprises the costs of all the member parts or sub-assemblies associated with it, as well as the cost of the orientation and securing of the members in the assembly. Costs of assembling the sub-assembly components are included in the total cost of those components.
Batch Size	The number of parts in a Set-up Batch. Typically, batch sizes represent one month of sales.
Bounding Box	A prismatic box enclosing the final part shape. The orientation of the bounding box determines the minimum stock size and the orientation of the part within the stock.
Bulk Removal Factor	A value used to compute the diameter of the default bulk removal tool and the characteristics of the bulk removal skin.
Cache	See "Document Cache".
Capital Investment	The total amount a company must invest in fixed costs before the first part or assembly can be made. This cost is 'fixed' because the company incurs the cost whether it makes one part or the total number of parts allowable before tooling must be refurbished or replaced.
Casting	The process of forming an object by pouring material into a mold, where it solidifies. Also, the process of forming a film or sheet by pouring a liquid onto a moving belt or by precipitation in a chemical bath.
Cavity	The space inside a mold into which material is injected.
Computer-Aided Design (CAD)	Software applications that enable interactive engineering drawing and electronic storage of mechanical designs including geometry, physical configuration, materials of construction, etc.
Cost Comparison	A tabular list of each member of the Comparison (rows) and the associated cost/time information (columns).
Cost Estimating	The process of calculating the probable cost of a product or service, including labor, material, vendor/supplier costs, and applicable rates and factors.
Cost Object	An entity that has costs associated with it. aPriori has three different types of cost objects: parts, assemblies, and Cost Roll-ups.
Cost of Goods Sold (COGS)	The direct expenses incurred in producing a particular good for sale, including the actual cost of materials that comprise the good, and the direct labor expense in putting the good in salable condition. COGS does not include indirect expenses such as office expenses, accounting, shipping department (although it may contain shipping costs), advertising, and other expenses that cannot be attributed to a particular item for sale. COGS for a manufacturing company will include things like basic materials plus the costs of production, supplies, and labor.
Cost per Part	Cost of tooling amortized at an individual component (part or assembly) level by Total Production Volume.
Cost Roll-up	A list of components (parts and assemblies) and their associated costs/times.
Cost Target	The cost target for the component (part or assembly)
Cost Taxonomy	The structure and linkages within aPriori that describe different Cost Categories. The Cost Taxonomy is canonically defined by aPriori. All parts of the Cost Taxonomy are linked; however, not all are directly additive. The Cost Taxonomy is the “architecture” of cost in aPriori.
Currency	A unit of cost. The default currency is US dollars.
Cycle Time	The actual time that a machine/process is operating on a given component (part or assembly).
Die Casting	A metal shaping process in which molten metal is forced into a reusable mold and held under pressure until it solidifies.
Direct Overhead	Costs associated with manufacturing of a specific part on a machine, such as, the machine's power costs, depreciation, maintenance, and so on, based on time.
Document Cache	A folder in which VPE information is saved from the database. This cache improves the performance of aPriori, especially when the clients are not located within the same LAN as the database server. It eliminates the need to extract large amounts of data from the database each time a part is costed. See the aPriori System Administration Guide for information about doc cache cleaning options.
Exchange Rate	Refers to the factor applied to equate one currency amount to another currency amount. For example, 1 USD = 1.1895 Euro.
Expendable Tooling	Tooling that is consumed during manufacturing, but not tied to a specific part. For example, a drill bit, turret press punch, etc. is used in the manufacture of many different part designs.
External Groove	A circular continuous channel cut into an external feature of a part.
External Thread	A thread that is formed on an external feature of a part.
Extraction	The use of a solvent to remove (extract) one or more components from a mixture; generally, the process of removing a desired or undesired constituent.
Extrusion	The process of forming rods, tubes, or other continuously formed pieces by pushing hot or cold semisoft solid material through a die.
Facility	The selection name for a Virtual Production Environment (VPE).
Fixtures and Jigs	Devices used to hold a part or an assembly in the correct orientation on a machine during manufacture or assembly. Fixtures and jigs under the Fixed Cost category are created for a specific design. It is assumed that these fixtures will not be re-used on a different design in the future.
Forging	A process where the desired shape is accomplished by forming in presses, hammers, rolls, upsetters, and related machinery to deform the workpiece.
Forming	The process that produces a useful shape by making any change in the shape of a metal piece which does not intentionally reduce the metal thickness. The term covers all operations required to form a flat sheet into a part, including deep drawing, stretching, bending, and buckling in the context of sheet metal.
Geometric Cost Driver (GCD)	A geometric attribute in the solid model of a component (part or assembly) that drives cost on the manufacturing floor. A GCD may be a discrete concept such as the thickness of sheet metal or the finished mass of a cast part, or it may be a high level human geometrical concept such as a bend, hole, pocket, fillet, draft angle, etc.
Grinding	The process that removes material from a workpiece using a grinding wheel or coated abrasives.
Grooving	A process in which grooves are cut to a specified depth in one pass by a form tool. Grooving does not sever a complete section from the workpiece.
Hard Tooling	Capital or hard tooling are tools that are purchased for creating one specific design and cannot be used to create other designs.
Hot Runners	Runners that are insulated from the chilled cavities in a mold and are kept hot. Hot-runner molds make parts that have no scrap.
Injection Molding	A shaping process in which thermoplastic material is fed into a heated barrel, mixed, and forced into a mold cavity, where it cools and hardens to the configuration of the mold cavity.
Internal Groove	A circular continuous channel cut into an internal feature of a part.
Internal Thread	A thread that is formed on an internal feature of a part.
Labor Cost	The amount that labor is paid to manufacture the part or assembly. During the building of a VPE, the customer determines which components of labor compensation are included in the labor rate that is used to calculate labor cost. However, labor cost usually includes hourly wages and benefits.
Labor Time	The time that a person is paid to perform an operation/process on one component (part or assembly).
Lifter	A mechanism for raising a part in a die or mold to a height for advancing it to another station, or for ejecting it from the die or mold.
Machine	The aPriori representation of a physical machine in a manufacturing facility.
Machining	The process in which a shape is generated by removing unwanted material. Shape restrictions exist for some machining processes. For example, turning can only produce axisymmetric shapes.
Machining Operation	An action performed as part of a machining technique. Typically, an operation is performed with a single tool.
Machining Technique	A description of the method used to manufacture a GCD. Some GCDs, such as holes, may be manufactured with a variety of techniques, each technique having its own scope of use and advantages. A machining technique typically requires one or more manufacturing operations to be performed.
Manual Arc Cost	The cost associated for a person to perform only the arcing to MIG weld one assembly.
Manual Arc Time	The time for a person to perform only the arcing to MIG weld one assembly.
Manual Cycle Time	The time for a person to perform all the tasks to weld one assembly (for example, loading, clamping, arcing, etc.).
Manual Spot Cost	The cost associated for a person to perform only the arcing to spot weld one assembly.
Manual Spot Time	The time for a person to perform only the arcing to spot weld one assembly.
Material	The chemical composition/alloy/name of the material of which a part is made.
Material Composition	The specific chemical composition of the material in industry standard terms (for example, ANSI spec, such as 1020 Hot Rolled Q1).
Material Cost	The cost of the physical material used in the manufacture of the part. Material Cost includes both the material in the physical part and an allocation of scrap material that is wasted during the manufacturing process. Material cost does not include consumable material (for example, weld wire, adhesives, etc.), only primary material.
Material Stock	The physical size of the piece from which a part is made (for example, sheet size for sheet metal, rod diameter and length for a shaft). For net form processes such as injection molding and casting, sizing is not applicable.
Material Type	The general class of metal (for example, Steel, Nylon, Brass, Aluminum, etc.). Although type is really a parent class, it functions as an attribute of composition in aPriori, rather than its parent.
Material Utilization	A measure of waste in manufacturing defined as: Gross Mass of a Part \ Rough Mass
Mechanical Computer-Aided Design (MCAD)	Refer to Computer-Aided Design (CAD).
MIG Gun Manipulation Cost	The cost associated with manipulating the MIG gun.
MIG Gun Manipulation Time	The time allowance for a person to move between welds, clean, and manipulate the MIG gun.
MIG Welding	Metal Inert Gas (MIG) welding is often referred to as wire-feed welding. It is a commonly used high deposition rate welding process. During the welding process, wire is continuously fed from a spool. MIG welding is sometimes referred to as a semi-automatic welding process.
Milling	A cutting process in which material is removed from a workpiece by a rotating tool.
New Product Introduction (NPI) Process	The process of introducing new products to market. It spans the entire product life cycle from initial identification of market/technology opportunity, conception, design and development through to production, market launch, support, enhancement and retirement.
Non-Geometric Cost Driver	A driver of part or assembly cost not directly tied to geometry. Examples include the factory of the supplier at which the part is made, selected routings, selected machines, production volume, and so forth.
Number of Years	The number of years that the component (part or assembly) will be produced.
Other Direct Cost	Other costs that can be specifically associated with the manufacture of a given design. In contrast, indirect cost or period overheads (not covered in aPriori) are expenses such as rent or lighting that are not easily allocated to a specific design. In an accounting system, direct costs typically become part of Cost of Goods Sold, whereas indirect costs are expensed every financial period as part of Sales, General, and Administrative (SG&A) expense. Other direct costs could be preventative maintenance expenses tied to a given machine, a material handling additive, and so forth.
Part	A single component that cannot be further subdivided into other cost object, as opposed to an assembly.
Part Number	The unique component (part or assembly) identifier, typically specified as the CAD file name. Note that this may or may not actually include a part number.
Parting Line	The location where two mold halves meet when they are closed.
Piece Part Cost	The marginal cost associated with making “one more” part of a given design. Piece part cost includes all Variable Costs associated with a parts creation but does not include depreciation of capital tooling. It does include expandable tooling.
Pocket Removal Factor	Used to compute the pocket roughing tool diameter and the characteristics of the pocket's removal skin.
Process	The type of manufacturing process that a machine performs (for example, Laser Cut, Standard Press, Plasma Cut, and so forth). Each machine has a process type and there may be many machines of the same process in a given Virtual Production Environment (VPE). aPriori uses three letter codes to denote processes (for example, Cut-to-Length = CTL, Laser Cut = LAS, and Bend Brake = BND).
Process Cost	The cost associated with a particular type of manufacturing process that a machine performs.
Process Formula	The aPriori logic and formulas that read Geometric Cost Drivers (GCDs) and non-geometric cost drivers as input in order to calculate time and cost.
Process Group	A group of processes of the same manufacturing type. For example, the Sheet Metal process group includes such processes as Laser Cut, Bend Brake, Shear, and so forth. Parts may often be completely manufactured using processes in one process group only. Other times a part or an assembly will require multiple process groups (for example, Casting, Machining, and Surface Treatment).
Process Routing	A sequence of processes that are used in sequence to add a group of manufacturing features to a part, and often, to complete the manufacture of a given part or sub-assembly (for example, CTL/LAS/BND).
Procurement	The body of activities and processes associated with acquiring materials, goods, and services to support the operation of the enterprise.
Programming Time	Many modern machines are Computer Numerical Control (CNC) machines that follow a computer program to make or assemble parts. A program needs to be created once (therefore, it is part of Fixed Cost).
Robot Arc Cost	The cost associated for a robot to perform only the arcing to MIG weld one assembly.
Robot Arc Time	The time for a robot to perform only the arcing to MIG weld one assembly.
Robot Cycle Time	The time for a robot and its operator to perform all the tasks to weld one assembly (for example, loading, clamping, arcing, etc.).
Robot Spot Cost	The cost associated for a robot to perform only the arcing to spot weld one assembly.
Robot Spot Time	The time for a robot to perform only the arcing to spot weld one assembly.
Rough Mass or Weight	The mass of all the material that was needed to get to the final state of the part. The sum of Finished Mass + Gross Part Mass + Mass of Stock Scrap.
Routing Entries	The list of Process Routings associated with a Virtual Production Environment (VPE).
Routing Formulas	Refer to Routing Rules.
Routing Rules	The heuristics (typically Boolean) that help aPriori to determine if a Process Routing is capable of manufacturing a given cost object by looking at the physical capabilities of a machine. For example, if a Sheet Metal Process Routing contains a Turret Press process, aPriori verifies that at least one of the turret presses in the Virtual Production Environment has the force to punch through the given thickness of the sheet metal. If not, this Process Routing is eliminated from the analysis.
Scenario	An instance of a Full Cost Driver Record that is dynamic (that is, non-geometric cost drivers can be modified to regenerate cost completely independent of CAD). In addition, it can have new GCDs applied to it and be evaluated with the current set of non-geometric cost drivers.
Scrap	Scrap is unused material that is commonly thrown away as useless material or sold to a scrap merchant. Scrap may be part scrap (considered inherently part of the material needed to produce the part) or stock scrap (scrap that is not “part of the part” - for example, internal holes, that could possibly be used for other parts).
Set-up Batch	The number of parts run before machines must be set up for new or different parts.
Set-up Cost per Part	The cost to set up a machine for a new batch of parts.
Set-up Time	The time to set up a machine for a new batch of parts.
Set-ups	The cost in machine downtime and labor incurred when a machine is configured to run a batch of a given design. This cost is amortized to individual parts or assemblies by the number of parts in a batch.
Side Cores	Used when molding parts in cavities not perpendicular to the direction in which the part is ejected from the mold. The cores are automatically pulled from the mold prior to the mold opening and reinserted when the mold closes again and prior to injection.
Spot Gun Manipulation Cost	The cost associated with manipulating the spot-welding gun.
Spot Gun Manipulation Time	The time allowance for a person to move between welds, clean, and manipulate the spot-welding gun.
Spot Welding	The process in which contacting metal surfaces are joined by the heat obtained from resistance to electric current flow. Workpieces are held together under pressure exerted by electrodes.
Stock Form	The physical form of the stock such as sheet, coil, hex bar, rectangular billet, pellet, etc. Note that stock form does not apply to net form processes (for example, Injection Molding, Casting, Powdered Metals, Extrusions, etc.).
Stock Size	The defining dimensions of the stock form. For example: Sheet — Length, Width, Thickness Rectangular Billet — Length, Width, Height Round Bar — Diameter, Length Pellet — N/A (does not apply to net form processes such as Injection Molding, Casting, Powdered Metals, Extrusions, etc.).
Stock Utilization	A measure of the component's bounding box size relative to the material stock size. If the size gap is above a certain threshold, which indicates excessive material waste, the system may trigger the creation of virtual stock rather than choose actual stock.
Subcomponent	A member of an assembly.
Surface Roughness	The irregularities in the surface texture which result from the production process
Thread Pitch	The number of threads per inch in the Imperial System or the distance between threads in the metric system.
Threading	A machining process that uses a single-point tool to produce a uniform helical thread form on the internal or external surface of a cylinder or cone.
Tool	The general type of tool that is being costed (for example, Blanking Die, Cam-actuated Die, etc.).
Tool Material	The speed at which a tool can cut material depends on the material from which it is made. Two high-level types of tool material are: High Speed Steel and Carbide. High Speed Steel tools are often cheaper but cut slower than Carbide tools. Each tool series has a tool material property.
Tool Series	A tool series is either an actual toolmaker's model milling tool offered in a variety of sizes or a virtual tool for a given tool type provided in a very wide variety of sizes. A tool series has a tool material property.
Tool Type	A general category of machining tool, such as Straight Drill, Flat Bottom Mill, etc.
Turning	The process in which the major motion of the single-point cutting tool is parallel to the axis of rotation of the rotating workpiece, producing cylindrical external surfaces.
Type	The category of tooling under which the tool falls. That is, Hard Tooling (Capital Tooling is treated as a fixed cost) or Expendable Tooling (treated as a direct variable cost).
Virtual Part	A part with no associated CAD model (created directly in aPriori for costing purposes only). A virtual part can be included in roll-ups and comparisons. A virtual part must have a unique name among all components (including CAD-referenced parts and assemblies, and other virtual parts).
Virtual Stock	A placeholder for actual material stock that does not exist for the VPE. Virtual stock is used in an analysis when no reasonably-sized actual stock is available in the VPE.
Virtual Tool	A placeholder for an actual tool that does not exist for the VPE. Virtual tools are used in an analysis when no feasible actual tool can be found or when you prefer to perform an analysis with all virtual tools.
Virtual Production Environment (VPE)	A virtual group of machines, workcenters, processes, process routings, and process groups that represents a production environment at a customer or at a supplier. This representation includes the physical situation (speeds, feeds, manufacturing times) and the cost structure of the VPE (labor rates, overheads, and so forth). Often, all the elements of a VPE would be in one physical location, analogous to a factory. However, this may vary from customer to customer.
VPE	See Virtual Production Environment.
VPE Administrator	The user of the aPriori VPE Administration Client.
Workcenter	An organizational group of machines. A workcenter often contains machines of the same process type which may be closely grouped on the manufacturing floor.