aP Design

High Impact Cloud Based Manufacturing Simulation Solution for Design Engineers

aP Design allows designers to quickly upload and evaluate design variants and different material, process, and sourcing options. Build comparisons and publish the best options for review with the broader team. Your design engineer can access a powerful application which connects to a scalable and cloud-based set of costing, visualization, reporting, and administrative services.

Cost Engineers can then refine results and advise on process and sourcing options. Team leads and other stakeholders in the organization have easy access for review and feedback at any time.

Early insight into manufacturability issues and cost drivers during the design process can have a critical impact on meeting cost targets, reducing time to market, and conducting more confident sourcing and supplier negotiation.

aP Design is a role-based cloud application purpose built for designers and engineers. It presents a streamlined user experience that only includes features and functions relevant to the job of designing new products. aP Design is part of a collaborative suite of cloud-based applications that brings your design engineers, cost engineers, team leads, and senior leadership onto the same page.

Product Features

Cloud Based and Mobile-Friendly Access

Simulation driven insights, anywhere. From your corporate office, your home office, the shop floor or a supplier site, aP Design can be accessed anywhere using only a browser. All aspects of aPriori’s Cloud Solutions leverage secure HTTPS browser protocols, secure AWS infrastructure with high availability (multiple availability zones, daily backups), independent 3rd party security testing, and SSO across all aPriori web applications.

Business Ready with Minimal Overhead

No server installs, big IT expenses, or procurement delays. The aP Design platform and services are all maintained by aPriori.

Bring Cost Awareness to Product Design

Design-stage reviews for manufacturability and cost help pinpoint issues when engineers still have the most flexibility to find a solution. Review automatic warnings on un-manufacturable features in a design. aP Design can also spot issues like features requiring costly specialized tooling. Make a quick change to your CAD model to address the identified problems, then quickly rerun the simulation to see the results.

Conduct Alternative Design Comparisons

Compare cost and manufacturability for different design choices. aP Design allows the designer to quickly upload and evaluate design variants and different material, process, and sourcing options, build comparisons, and publish the best options for review with your team.

An Intuitive Role-Based Interface

Visual tools like summary tiles, detail panels, interactive charts, and 3D visualization help engineers quickly focus on the most crucial data. Users can keep work-in-progress evaluations private and share as needed with the broader team. aP Design not only identifies potential manufacturability and cost issues, but it also offers design guidance that is particularly helpful to junior engineers who may not know how to mitigate the problem.

Design to Cost Insight When It Matters Most

Confident design-stage cost modeling helps hit cost targets, reduces time to market, and supports more confident sourcing decisions. Get interactive guidance on key topics and issues for machining, plastic molding, casting, and sheet metal fabrication.

Product Cost Heat Mapping

aPriori analyzes your CAD model to build a heat map that visualizes high cost areas and helps you understand how tolerances can drive specialized processes and operations.

An Integrated Product Cost Knowledge Base

Expert knowledge of design for manufacturability, manufacturing processes, and product cost are built into a guided learning experience for users.

How it works:

aP Design can work in standalone mode or in tandem with aP Generate. With no input required from the designer, aP Generate automatically initiates a comprehensive manufacturing simulation as soon as the designer checks in a new or modified design to their Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) system. If some manufacturing anomaly is identified, aP Generate proactively notifies the designer with an email communication directly to their inbox.

Either manually or by clicking on a hyperlink from the aP Generate notification, aP Design allows the designer to quickly upload and evaluate the identified component or assembly. They can study design variants and different material, process, and sourcing options that could address the manufacturability issue identified, and publish the best options for review with the broader team.

Cost Engineers can then refine results and advise on the most effective solution to the problem.

Team leads and other stakeholders in the organization have easy access for review and feedback at any time. All users of aPriori have access to the same shared components and scenarios.

See aP Design in action

Built-in manufacturability guidance makes designing to cost easier than ever. Best of all? It integrates with the CAD system and PLM you’re already using. Request a personalized demo today.

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“After a number of manufacturers returned our design with ‘no bid’ responses, we ran the design through aPriori, which recognized the part of the design that was causing the problem – a deep undercut needing special tooling. The engineer re-evaluated the design and determined that the undercut was not a real need but was created by a combination of some features. Sending the design back out to suppliers resulted in numerous bids and a 50% cost reduction!”

-Eyal Siryon, MCAD Technologies Team Manager, Rafael Advanced Defense Systems

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