AutoForm Bidding and Planning Solution

Software Solution for

Rapid Production Sequence Definition with Tooling and Material Cost Calculation

The calculation of tooling and material costs is currently performed mostly using personally or commercially developed Microsoft Excel-based worksheets. This approach requires the user to manually enter a lot of input data describing the part and/or the tool and is quite time-consuming and cumbersome. In addition, calculation results often depend on the subjective assessment of the user and therefore lack transparency and reproducibility.

In today’s highly competitive industrial environment, it is imperative to minimize production cost. The AutoForm Bidding and Planning Solution with its innovative graphics-based approach speeds up the calculation process with automatic feature detection and production sequence definition. It allows users to systematically identify the cost optimized manufacturing process, while ensuring full cost transparency and result reproducibility.

The AutoForm Bidding and Planning Solution is an accurate and easy-to-use software solution for all planning tasks associated with the production of sheet metal parts. It allows users to define a production sequence, evaluate part feasibility, determine the minimum blank and the associated material cost and determine the tooling cost associated with the chosen production sequence.

The Bidding and Planning Solution targets automotive part and production planners in early phases of production planning where most production costs are decided upon. The solution enables planners to perform cost calculations much faster and, in addition, to systematically and quickly evaluate multiple, alternative manufacturing concepts and determine the cost optimized manufacturing process. It quickly delivers complete, reproducible and usable planning data.
 

The AutoForm Bidding and Planning Solution provides the following benefits:

	Increases planning efficiency by speeding up planning processes and by enabling planners to quickly evaluate alternative production scenarios.
	Allows the rapid identification of the minimum cost production sequence and saves money on tooling and production.
	Provides a fully transparent cost structure driven by automatic identification of part details, allowing identification of tooling cost drivers.
	Allows the company-wide standardization of production sequences, operation and tooling content.
	Provides complete transparency regarding production and tooling decisions and provides reproducible numbers to back up decisions and requests.
	Provides complete reproducibility of tooling cost calculations.

The main features of the AutoForm Bidding and Planning Solution include:

	Full graphic-based 3D approach using CAD geometry – no cumbersome spreadsheets. All operations are graphically represented providing complete transparency which production sequence or tooling contents form the basis for the tool cost calculation.
	Intelligent production sequence based on automatic identification of part details. AutoForm automatically analyzes the part and identifies part details which have an impact on tooling cost. The detected part details may easily be checked and augmented. Additional part details may be added manually with easy-to-use graphic-supported software features. Each part detail is automatically associated with a manufacturing sequence, which may easily be changed or appended using drag-and-drop icons.
	Material cost calculation with automatic price-based optimization. Determination of blank prices using area or price-based optimization methods with material price lists including surcharges from Microsoft Excel.
	Push-button solution for tool cost calculation. Based on the defined production sequence, the tooling cost may be calculated with a single click, detailing prices for each operation and process step including the blanking stage.
	Turn-key solution with full customization of user data. Full user customization capabilities regarding hourly rates, tooling material and stock part prices.

This product may practice one or more of the following patents owned by or available to AutoForm Engineering GmbH, Switzerland: European patents 1290515, 1623287, 1665103, 1741012 and US patents 7542889, 7623939. Other European, other US and JP patents pending.