27 User Guided Sheet Metal—Progressive Die

This section describes the costing details and inputs that are available for User Guided Progressive Die. This process is part of the User Guided process group for UG Sheet Metal VPEs. See User Guided Costing for an introduction to user-guided costing.

For this process, aPriori estimates manufacturing times and costs for high-volume sheet metal parts. The routing can include secondary surface treatment and packaging processes (if you have licensed these modules). Since this is not a GCD-driven cost model, cost estimates are not based on a CAD model and geometry extraction; rather, basic geometric inputs (such as blank dimensions and number of bends and forms) are provided by the user. See Sheet Metal for the GCD-driven progressive die cost model.

The chapter includes the following sections:

• Cost Model Overview

• Geometric Inputs

• Feasibility and Routing

• Cost Algorithms and Calculations

• Additional User Inputs

• Process Defaults and Thresholds