aPriori 2020-01 Regional Data Libraries
Below is an overview of updates and key data changes that have been made to the Regional Data Libraries (RDLs) for this release. Standard economic updates were performed for all regions and all cost models, including updated Currency Exchange Rates, Material Rates, Labor Rates, Overhead Rates, and Toolshop Rates. Selected issues also were corrected. For more detailed information including the magnitude of changes for specific regions and materials since the previous 2019-10 RDL release, see the Regional Data Libraries 2019-10 Release Notes.
• Currency Exchange Rates have remained relatively stable relative to the US Dollar.
• Labor Rates were adjusted significantly for 4 regions (Switzerland, India, China-Southwest-Chongqing, and China-East-Shanghai). This is because the variation in wage levels from the low-skill workers to high-skill workers follows different patterns than in most other regions.
• For most regions, Labor Rates increased from the previous RDL data, largely tracking to corresponding changes in Exchange Rates but also affected by changes in the local economies and labor markets. The largest changes were for Switzerland (increase of ~10%), India (decrease of ~12.5%), China-Southwest-Chongqing (decrease of ~12%), and China-East-Shanghai (decrease of ~ 19%), due to the wage level adjustment described in the previous bullet. The Canada regions, the Czech Republic, and Israel increased by ~ 7 - 8%, The remaining regions saw more modest increases of between 1 – 5%.
• There were no changes to plastic material rates between the 2019-10 and 2020-01 RDL releases, other than for ABS (increased by10.4%), Polypropylene and Polystyrene (which decreased by about 7% and 2%, respectively).
Metal prices generally rose between 2.9% to 4.7% compared to the previous RDL data. Rates for stainless steel increased by 5.8% and heat-resistant super alloys rose by 8%. The only decrease was for Titanium (1.6%)
• Direct and Indirect Overhead Rates were updated for the Extrusion process (initially introduced in aPriori 2019 R2). Some erroneous overhead rate data was inadvertently included in the previous 2019-10 RDL release and rates computed via the bottom-up Overhead Rate calculation method did not match the values populated in the machine fields for Direct Overhead Rate and Indirect Overhead Rate. Customers are advised to apply these corrections or make similar ones to any customer VPE data that was derived from the originally published values.
• The 2020-01 Regional Data Libraries are available in versions compatible with both aPriori 2019 R2 SP1 and with aPriori 2019 R1 SP2.