Digital Manufacturing Software for

Cost Engineering

Expand Your Sphere of Influence by Extending Your Cost Engineering Expertise to the Entire Product Team

It’s a fact. No matter what industry you are in, or what company you work for, cost engineering teams are always understaffed and underfunded. We’ve seen scenarios at major global manufacturers where there are thousands of product designers and a team of 20-30 cost engineers trying mightily to keep up with the flow of new product designs. We get it, you need help.

Put simply, automation is the answer to your problems. Instead of evaluating one part at a time, what if you could analyze hundreds, even thousands of new part designs at once. Set up a batch run, go home, eat your dinner, go to bed, come back the next morning and your results are waiting for you. Sounds too good to be true, right? Well, it’s not.

And, that’s not the only benefit digital manufacturing simulation can bring to cost engineers; whether you are on a large team, or if you are part of a two-person team at a machining shop trying to keep up with new quote requests from your customers. For years and years, the manufacturing and cost analysis process has consisted of designers and engineering departments throwing a new design over the wall with only days left until product launch, and now you are under the gun to analyze a complex design with not nearly enough time to get it done. What if you could project your cost expertise across the company so that the designers and engineers – the folks responsible for creating cost – had the capability to a first-order analysis of manufacturability and eliminate some of the more obvious problems before they ever got to you. Again, impossible you say? With digital manufacturing simulation software this is a reality that you can achieve.

Your underfunded and understaffed cost departments consistently try to keep pace with product designers that are 10x or more the size of their department. And while expectations to reduce costs for the company increases, there is still a heavy reliance on outdated cost estimation technology and homegrown costing systems to meet growing demands. It’s about time cost engineering teams had a tool of their own.

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Bring Your Cost Engineering Team Into the Future of Manufacturing


Your design and sourcing teams can benefit from the expertise that cost engineers bring to the table. As part of the software deployment team, you get to set the rules and constraints that will ensure high-quality design practices that eliminate obvious manufacturability errors that should never make it to the cost engineering team.

Here's how it works:

1.

Start by checking in your 3D CAD model to the PLM system you’re already using.
Cost Engineering Software
2.

aPriori automatically costs the model and identifies specific features of the design that are difficult or expensive to manufacture.
Cost Engineering Software
3.

You’ve got mail! The cost engineer and the designer both get notified that there’s a potential cost or manufacturability problem.
Cost Engineering Software
4.

Designers and cost engineering teams can collaborate within aPriori to investigate issues and review design guidance to optimize for manufacturability and cost right from the start.
Cost Engineering Software
5.

Your product managers can see where each design is in its life cycle and how different designs align with cost targets.
Cost Engineering Software
6.

If the part is outsourced, then the aPriori estimate can support sourcing negotiations for current or NPI parts.
Cost Engineering Software
7.

When needed, cost engineers can also support strategic sourcing with aPriori’s bulk costing to batch process thousands of parts, and isolate any outliers where a should cost estimate doesn’t match what the company is paying for a part, providing even more cost-saving opportunities for the cost engineer to address proactively.
Cost Engineering Software
8.

Cost engineering teams get the recognition they deserve in producing accurate estimates to meet cost targets and bring products to market faster.
Cost Engineering Software

    Seeing is Believing. Request a Demo.

    We’ll show you exactly how aPriori works.
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    The Benefits of Digital Manufacturing Software

    Roll-Up Reporting & Dashboards

    Generate standard or ad hoc cost estimation reports for new or redesigned products.

    Cost Modeling Made Easy

    Move away from cumbersome and time-consuming homegrown systems to a streamlined, highly accurate cost modeling system.

    Meet Cost Targets, Fast

    Leverage standard and ad hoc reports to get critical insight into product manufacturability and cost so you can provide actionable guidance to your product design and engineering team early in the life cycle.

    Collaboration in One Place

    Provide specific feedback on cost-reduction opportunities at every stage of the product life cycle.

    Prioritize and Proactively Address Cost Issues

    Leverage cost simulation software for bulk costing, should cost analysis, and powerful cost analytic reporting.

    Fact-Based Negotiations

    Enable friendly and productive discussions with suppliers regarding causes of cost discrepancies.


    “With aPriori, we have reduced our cost visibility lead time from 9 days to 2.5 days. With that huge time savings, we are able to get to market quicker. We can also use this extra time to review designs to determine if we can reduce costs even further.”
    — Marc-Andre Patry, Cost Simulation Engineer, Soucy Int'l

    aPriori Solutions for Cost Engineering

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    aP Generate

    Connect aPriori to your PLM system for automated manufacturing simulation upon check-in of new or modified CAD designs.

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    aP Pro

    Collaborate with other cost engineers and align your design for manufacturability goals with the entire product lifecycle team: From project management to sourcing professionals.

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    aP Analytics

    Detailed reports of cost data for your products. Create custom dashboards to consistently monitor new product initiatives against Design to Cost targets.

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