Engineering costs, NRE costs and Production costs

QuoteArchitect-PCA supports the quoting production engineer in a systematic, pre-production variables analysis of the deliverables engineering services, NRE costs and the composed manufacturing workflow before running the rules-driven Costing Engine.

Based on the user configurable Virtual Factory model, which represents in detail your production facility, the costing engine calculates in real time the costs of the manufacturing and test for the job, taking all relevant constraints into consideration. Literally in a few milliseconds, detailed production and test cost overviews are generated, allowing every single cost item to be drilled down to the underlying formulas.

More about our Virtual Factory model and Costing Engine.

1. PCA calculations are fast and consistent

A virtual factory model with costing engine assures a detailed, structured, reliable and consistent costing methodology. The non-costing of certain manufacturing costs thus becomes a controlled commercial decision instead of an ugly surprise afterwards.

When different engineers manually calculate the production cost for the same job, it is almost impossible to get equal results. Especially under pressure, the differences between their calculations can become significant, which is a very unstable basis for the quoting process. Who is right??

Assuming equal manufacturing flow selection, in QA-PCA the calculations are not influenced by the operator(s). Calculation errors are impossible, no cost aspect is forgotten and the costing of each operation or process (manual or automatic) can be analysed down to bit level.

2. A Virtual Factory model with great flexibility

After the initial set-up, it is very easy to extend, modify or adapt the basic data in the virtual factory model at any given moment. The zero-state mode of the virtual factory incorporates each modification directly into all cost calculations.

The virtual factory is configured financially and economically, mainly with the help of the general ledger. The technical configuration is based on both technical and practical data of the used operations and processes (e.g. from daily practice or an MES system).
The great flexibility enables, for example, what-if analyses of a new investment or the hire of a new employee. The impact on hourly rates and other costs is immediately visible and active.The same applies to rapidly changing costs of raw materials (e.g. energy or solder paste) or adjustments to e.g. interest rates.

3. Immediate warnings for process constraint violations

Another aspect not to be underestimated is the definition of process limitations in the Virtual Factory model. Every EMS is familiar with the often disastrous consequences when certain process limitations are not recognised in advance and turn out to cause a show stopper during production.

Maximum or minimum product dimensions, but also new shape codes or component limitations such as not being cleanable or not having a certain tape feeder size are easily overlooked. For instance in the latter case, you may be faced with additional investments and/or long delivery times, which may exceed the job delivery time. Before a costing process is started, QuoteArchitect-PCA warns for any constraint violations that may require additional work, costly adjustments to the workflow, additional investments or seriously affect the product delivery time.