Part cost as a building block.

Where it starts

Here the part is not the product. The product is a module or a complete machine, developed with the customer and then built in small batches. A cost engineer needs a well-founded cost for every part: it is the building block for the price of the whole.

Requests range from a small module to a whole machine, and they arrive in a steady stream. A price therefore needs two things at once: speed and substance. A quick guess without substance is no use for a module of many parts; a well-founded price that arrives too late is no use either.

How it usually runs

The work runs in spreadsheets with home-built tools shared across the team, next to the ERP and CAD/CAM. Much of it is manual. Internal estimates are set against outside quotes.

The shorter the time from request to estimate, the better the chance of the order. The growth is there, but it cannot be met with more people: they are hard to find.

What Blake prepares

A cost is only useful here when the gap with your own estimate can be explained. That is why machines, rates and materials sit in Blake as factory settings: the cost is calculated with your shop, not with an average. Without your own rates loaded, a result is a reference, not a cost.

Model and drawing paired per part, the requirements as proposals, and a cost on lines with time, rate and quantity, per quantity break. A frame or sheet part sits in the same request; Blake costs the machined parts. More on factory settings.

Where people decide

The cost engineer decides which cost becomes the building block. Every line shows its inputs, so a gap with your own estimate can be traced to a rate, a time or a quantity. A correction to the estimate is kept with who, when and why.

What it comes down to

In module building, part cost carries through into the price of the whole. A guess without substance is no use for a module of many parts; a well-founded price that arrives too late is no use either. A line that shows its inputs is quicker to judge than a total.

Today the quote goes out as a PDF, with CSV and JSON export. More on assemblies and modules and on estimating.

Key points

• In module building, part cost is a building block, not an end price.
• Speed and substance are no contradiction when every line shows its inputs.
• A gap with your own estimate must trace back to a rate, a time or a quantity.
• Your own machines and rates turn an estimate into your estimate.