Cost Engineering is a flexible cost engineering solution that covers pricing/costing as well as planning records for discrete parts or assemblies. It is not a MRP or ERP tool (such as SAP or JobShop) but does work with them.
What you put in:
- Method of manufacture (i.e. Operations)
- Stock material size or type
- Batch Size (Quantity)
What you get out:
- Competitive quotations
- Plant usage (e.g. capacity planning)
- Controlled markup and discounts
- Purchase inventory
Cost Engineering is flexible enough to work any types of manufacturing. You can accurately estimate the time and cost of manufacturing things (such as machined parts) by simply changing things like the material(s) used, resources and component size. From this you can then create operations which can be used to define the production plan of the part. Parts can then be assembled to form complete assemblies to a works order or production schedule.
Being able to accurately predict the time to manufacture enhances your ability to deliver on time, which in turn improves your customer experience and profitability.
Other benefits of choosing Cost Engineering:
- Keep track of bids, costs and resources.
- Real-time detail estimating of discrete manufacturing from CAD input.
- Create estimates based on historical data and industry standards.
- Compare the relationship between estimated and actual manufacturing.
- Report on customer history.
With an affordable investment for just one month you can evaluate the system:
- £75 per month rolling subscription
- Discounts for multiple users
All of our pricing options come with regular updates and email support.
If you’re an existing CES customer on an older version of ESTIM, you can upgrade to one of our new Cost Engineering subscription packages here on our website.
If you’re a customer currently on a subscription and would like to change your subscription, you can cancel your current subscription on your account page and then follow the steps to purchase a new one. Alternatively, you can contact us directly and we can change your subscription for you.
While an ERP/MRP’s standard cost estimate considers the price of a manufactured part and potentially also the operations needed to make it, it does not have a way of calculating the time to manufacture. Cost Engineering additionally considers speeds, feeds, depths, handling, hit rates etc and provides you with an accurate calculation.
Cost Engineering establishes the standard time that each operation should take and then you can import the process plan into your MRP/ERP system with an associated cost. Or alternatively use it stand-alone for process planning, customer records, quotations, shop floor documentation, and purchase requisitions.
Yes, Cost Engineering can take sizes directly from a CAD design, making it very quick and easy to evaluate the manufacturing of a part.
When the CAD design changes, the Cost Engineering time and cost change in unison.
Cost Engineering works with CAD by importing and using XML files (.xml). We offer a utility program called CAD Wizard (CAD_Wizard.exe) which takes your spreadsheets (.xls or .xlsx) and converts them into the required XML file in the format produced by the AutoCAD block export function. However, the spreadsheet does not need to be an AutoCAD block file.
Here is an example spreadsheet:
The CAD Wizard (CAD_Wizard.exe) utility program is provided to import the CAD data into Cost Engineering. Run this utility to import your CAD data in .xml format.
There are two options:
- Read and import a file from the current directory for processing and transfer to Cost Engineering
- Edit the existing block data (Look ups) read and import xls / xsls file*
* If all the look ups are tried and tested this button expands the block data into the xml file which Cost Engineering is waiting for.
Once this process is complete, Cost Engineering will then add, remove or modify parts of the feature data and then display the new times and costs. If the wizard comes across a block name without a task the process will be interrupted and the operator will need to select an operation and task(s). A block cannot reference multiple operations.
When a task is added to a look up list for a block, the chain and passed parameters has no effect. If a response is left blank, Cost Engineering will either assume its normal default or indicate that a entry is missing.
If you want to refer to parameters such as #Dia# or #L# etc you must arrange for the values in the Block spreadsheet to be populated by the CAD system as it exports the data.
Tasks in a block can be added, edited and deleted. You may want to use this feature to help refer to additional parameters, rearrange values in a block or more.
To edit an entry double-click it. From here you can:
- Delete one or more tasks.
- Add additional tasks to the block.
- Delete the whole block.
After purchasing Cost Engineering you will receive your licence code in a confirmation email. You will need this code to validate your copy of Cost Engineering.
Open Setup.exe when downloaded.
You will need the MSsql driver installing if you do not have an SQL Server on your system already. Download the tools here (version 8).
You can use a later version but you may need the tools which you download separately.
If you require assistance with deploying the database on another server, please contact CES support.
We have a number of instructional videos below to help you familiarise yourself with ESTIM:
Training documents: