Simplified should-costing for a transport manufacturing leader

Discover how to get a complete should-cost analysis for custom parts in minutes, using just your BOM.

ManufacturingShould Costing

Key Points

Use Case:

Should-Costing

Department:

Procurement

Industry:

Transport Manufacturing

Challenges:

  • Slow should-costing process, not suited for custom parts

Solution:

  • BOM-centered approach for fast and precise should-costing tool
  • Standardized process applicable to custom pieces
  • “Spotified” access to live data feeds from thousands of data sources
  • Secure online platform – easy to access and easy to use

Results:

  • Should-costing process time was reduced from 5-6 weeks to minutes
  • Reliable analyses with over 90% accuracy
  • Short integration time and fast ownership of the solution

Should-costing can be a tedious process

A large transport manufacturer got in contact with Makersite to conduct faster and more accurate should costing on their complete train systems.
Current methods often rely on historical data or on-site observations. Experts would have to follow a product manufacturing process to put a price on each step or use a statistical approach to should-cost parts. However, these methods fall short when it comes to assessing custom-made parts or products still in the design phase, or are simply extremely time-consuming due to the number of considered parts.
Our client, the transportation unit of a large international conglomerate, was confronted with these problems. Their team of experts typically took 5 to 6 weeks to should-cost the company’s products and started from scratch for every custom piece. This resulted in many lost hours and inaccurate cost estimates, while the conclusions were unable to be used for cross-functional solutions.

Start with a BOM, get complete should-cost for custom parts in minutes

Makersite uses a fundamentally different approach to should-costing. No need to spend months on-site to chase after suppliers’ information or take wild guesses. Instead, we provide our client with the next generation of software technology and data.

Makersite starts with a Bill Of Materials (BOM), the document that reflects the unique structure of any manufactured product. After importing the BOM on the platform with a simple drag and drop, the document is decomposed, and each “leaf” of the document is mapped to live data feeds from thousand of data sources worldwide. The system then runs an algorithm that estimates the price of the product based on its structure, manufacturing process as well as its raw materials.
Manufacturing costs and overheads are also considered: the system offers the possibility to create custom cost models for different countries to take into account country specificities like labor costs.

Fast and accurate results to unlock deeper analysis

Over 95% accuracy

Our client reported over 95% accuracy after in-house tests on existing products, This allowed them to produce high-quality analyses in a matter of minutes.

From 6 weeks to minutes

Our client reduced the time of should-costing analyses from 5-6 weeks to minutes, giving them the opportunity to take on more projects in a shorter time-span.

Fast ownership of the solution

Makersite allowed our client to easily standardize its process and drastically accelerate the procurement team performance without major disturbance of their workflow.