aPriori Technologies Reviews & Insights

aPriori is used to serve the following purpose: 1. To select strategic suppliers to procure parts 2. For make vs buy decision 3. Design engineers use to identify the cost of design 4. Selection of the right manufacturing process to manufacture a part 5. To validate the right suppliers, right manufacturing process, and the right location to procure. The end objective is to procure parts at optimal cost.

When you have a part this tool gives you multiple options with respect to that manufacturing feasibility. For example, if a sheet metal part can be manufactured using 5 processes this tool gives cost and it also helps to understand what will be challenged with machines and parts.

I found aPriori is a great tool that supports all stakeholders of any product lifecycle in the Design Development of Product Maintenance. Also found it as an excellent tool in the hands of a Designer to understand the impact of design on cost and identify design cost Issues and design rule violations early into the design phase. aPriori is also helping to understand the effect of alternate designs and processes.

From my experience aPriori is a classical algorithm in data mining. It is used for mining frequent itemsets and relevant association rules. Also, it is devised to operate on a database containing a lot of transactions, for instance, items brought by customers in a store. Whereas aPriori requires high computation if the itemsets are very large and the minimum support is kept very low and the entire database needs to be scanned.

We use aPriori for our product should-costing which can be further used for negotiation with our suppliers. We also use aPriori for our cost down/NPD projects so that we can evaluate the design changes with respect to cost. In our organization, we are the only ones using this tool and supporting all the segments.

aPriori is well suited for a sheet metal and plastic process group. In machining, it is somewhat good for the turning process but in the case of milling processes, aPriori needs to look seriously and come up with a refinement.

We can imagine and dream about a product that we like, but when it comes to cost we take a wild guess. Being more realistic about cost by considering all of the parameters is an essential feature required by any customer in modern days—this is being fulfilled by aPriori. It also creates transparency inside the organization and more realistic cost. Greater efficiency/faster with greater accuracy.

In new product development, it is well suited to help show the cost of potential and early visibility to management.

We use aPriori to have the best parts with a fair price with the right process/supplier. It is great software for NPI and renegotiation tasks. We use the reports to get fair prices and to develop a high-efficiency process at our supplier base.

NPI is a must have since it is an area where the reports are helpful since we do not have that process in place. For current parts it is easier to decide on suppliers because we just moved to a similar process for suppliers, but it is also helpful to quantify the investments and the best process route.

By a department Supply Chain.

The perfect scenario would be a machined piece with simple features and standard stock. Sheet metal without complex bends. Machining from a casting is a great example of the capabilities of the program and how well it can do it.

aPriori is used in our cost management team. We are support functions in our organization that are responsible for the cost analyses. Our analyses are used across the organization. The cost analyses used for value-based negotiations, New Product Development pricing, spend optimizations for suppliers, reverse engineering, and value tracking for various commodities etc., Processes are updated to maintain the maturity of the cost results we get from it.

On the fly costing is one of the good things aPriori has. Once the engineer does the design, he can check the cost immediately. So the cost avoidance part is very good. An engineer can optimize the design to cost. This helps to avoid engineering wasting time and supplier settlements will happen on time. The negotiations also will be very much fact based & supplier agreement happens faster.

aPriori helps us to clearly understand the cost structure and to establish the should cost models globally through our department. As it has the capability to calculate the cost directly from 3D models so we can have cost models for a wide range of configurations.

aPriori is well suited for organizations which has a demand in their cost structure.

• Product Cost Management :

At my organization we started product cost management three and half years ago, and I am responsible for all "cost down" related activities in the organization. We are also responsible for cost avoidance and target costing for the new products. we are all familiar with the tagline "Cost Before It Matters" and had a few workshops where we found the tool is very agile and able to cost using facts and data, which is critically important for survival in this fast moving-world and for being the best in the industry.

aPriori is essential in our department for activities such as:

• Potential for current parts- Value- Base Negotiation [ Direct Savings from Current Suppliers]
• Providing target cost for new products [ New Product Development]
• Speed, innovation, capacity
• Generating the Technical Ideas during the Supplier workshop , Idea Generation Workshops

Business Problem:

• To meet the Negotiation Target for the suppliers- [ Fact- Based Negotiation]
• Supplier Rationalization (Supplier Bench-marking)
• Cost Break-up for the Parts (Quote Missing)
• Most Economic ways of Producing the Parts in machining could be analysed
• Negotiation with suppliers
• Keeping the target cost for the new products i.e. cost avoidance
• RFQ benchmarking
• Producing results quickly
• Reduced the RFQ response time drastically

I am using aPriori 2016 R2 SP1 currently and it has undergone a lot of updates since I started using it, and I strongly recommend for designers, and strategic buyers to estimate the cost of parts and products.

It integrates with CAD systems and is particularly useful for estimating costs for the following industrial processes:

Forging:

• Excellent for medium size and medium complex parts
• Weight range: 2-50 kg
• Material: Steel
• Forging: Hot Forging

Die Casting:

• Best with good routing and machine selection according to the die size and part size
• Melting Model need very little logic
• Separate components for Melting and Casting i.e. cost can be derived for each activity

Machining of Casting/Forging:

• Process group is the best for machining
• Many routings where we can play with activating the turning setup / setup axis activation
• We can experiment with different Routing and aPriori tells us why it cannot be done and gives useful data for redesign
• Gives all Machining parameters i.e machine name, feed rate, speed running, power capacity, etc.

Surface Treatment:

• We can use the Parts in the barrel or in rack for heat treatment
• Masking can be done for painting parts

Other Process:

• Testing processes also available i.e. X-Ray test, leak test etc...

Above all it is really great tool, and big thanks aPriori for enhancing the current technology and digitalization landscape!

aPriori is mostly used by two differents engineering development teams to know in real time the cost of a part/assembly/product. We have a costing simulation department who uses aPriori to give this feedback cost to the development team.

So, it helps in many ways:

• Be quicker and more confident when we have a design decision to make for in-house development project
• Give a fast quote to our customer in a build to print product
• Remove the number of RFQ to our suppliers

We are also starting to use aPriori to set our manufacturing rate

[It's] very powerful and useful. It became a must-have/"cannot live without it anymore" [tool[ very quickly throughout all the company. We were at ease waiting 1 or 2 weeks to get a price/quote and now, when people wait more than a day, it's too long for them. So far, we only use 20% of the software and cannot wait to see what we will do with it in the future. It could more be more customizable.