Design teams engaged in new projects may often have a poor understanding of future production costs and defer cost estimation to later stages of the product lifecycle. However, lack of early understanding of production costs can lead to underestimated real expenses and lost opportunity to reduce costs locked in by early design decisions. In short, not having early-stage manufacturing cost estimates can lead to reduced competitiveness and eventually to business model failure. To help businesses overcome this problem and reduce design-to-production time Galorath Incorporated developed its unique ‘cost-model’ that enables estimation of manufacturing costs at early design stages. This know-how was implemented in the SEER for Manufacturing (SEER-MFG) application and has been continuously improved and developed by Galorath for more than 20 years. SEER-MFG is a process-centric costing approach using product data such as dimensions, materials and manufacturing operations to build cost estimates. SEER-MFG estimates are comprehensive covering labor, material and tooling costs, providing insight into how different manufacturing process steps contribute to the overall cost. The application has received broad adoption, but particularly in the aerospace market. The customers include Boeing, Airbus, Textron Aviation and many other manufacturers worldwide. The application accepts numerous precise data and in return generates accurate cost estimates helping manufacturers reduce their expenses by iteratively fine-tuning the product design.
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