aPriori , a provider of cost management software for the discrete manufacturing industry, has released version 3.7 of the aPriori cost management platform. By providing real-time, predictive costs assessment throughout the entire product development process, aPriori v3.7 allows designers, manufacturing engineers, purchasing professionals, cost managers and program/project management to make better decisions to reduce, avoid, and recover product costs, according to the company.
The software, currently in use at a Fortune 100 manufacturer, is said to allow companies to reduce costs of goods sold by whole percentages by identifying quantifiable savings in material, tooling, labor and overhead while evaluating alternative designs, processes and sources.
Version 3.7 features include:• Predictive real-time cost assessments to provide designers “what-if” cost trade-off analysis from component to product level within the MCAD environment;• Deterministic routings for lowest cost production down to the machine level allows manufacturing professionals to explore cost saving alternatives;• Time/cost models address the common manufacturing processes with customizable models to support unique customer-specific processes;• Advanced “should-cost” analysis incorporates cost estimates for in-house facilities and generic industry production plants to enable more efficient supplier selection and fact-based negotiations; and• Web-based interface offers managers on-demand production-level cost roll-ups linked directly to design, manufacturing, and sourcing.
aPriori has also partnered with PTC, a provider of product lifecycle management software solutions. By integrating its cost management platform with PTC software, aPriori can provide manufacturing companies utilizing PTC solutions access to product cost information early in the product development process.
—David Greenfield, editorial director, Control Engineering [email protected] [email protected]
