I have been asked to source estimating software to aid our manufacturing process. The number of manufactured parts that we run through the shop is too large to handle for our production manager, so we are looking to automate.
We build subassemblies from scratch; sheets, bars, tubes, of various metals and plastics in various gauges are used to produced component parts feeding upper subassemblies.
We start with CAD drawings, we know the material properties, and the speed of our tools. Tools vary in speed, and until we start creating we don’t know which tool will be used. We would like to batch and nest multiple different jobs that use the same material for the parts that get produced.
So what we want is a tool that can write back estimated production time to Epicor for a part while keeping in mind complexity and the speed of a tool for a certain material.
In the end we would like this to be able to used as a quoting tool and to assist in production scheduling as we now have an estimate based on parameters we set, rather than the position of the moon.
Is there a system that gets rave reviews form the group? I see a couple of discussions from a decade or so ago discussing MicroEstimating, wondering if anyone has any updated feedback…
Are you wanting this estimating tool to build out your BOM or BOO that will be used on job, or is this just for quoting purposes to get a cost and estimated run time?
It would be in the first place to add depth to the duration of the ops in the manufacturing process. The job is already a fact, and we know what the Method is comprised of. However, in the quoting prcess it would be nice if we can create a part with MoM that contains most of the assemblies required and run that through the integration so we have an idea what the manufacturing time is of all the assemblies (and cost).
With out knowing more details about your products and how you run the business, i would say that the out of the box quoting tool in epicor can do that. you can pull in a method from an existing part to a part on the fly and then add additional ops and get an estimated cost and run times. you can then use that MOM from the quote to go to the job.
if you have a lot If-Then rules when you quote, the product configurator is an option too.
Where we need more than the Quote Module is that we are looking for a tool that analyzes the CAD model, and calculates the runtime across the multiple ops / machines it takes to make a part. Then there is the nesting bit as an added feature on the wishlist…
MicroEstimating www.https://www.microest.com was brought up in the past as a solution. Looking at their site they claim to have some type of integration, and users in the past have mentioned it. Is anyone here running this?