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Include machining cost in BoM

Jim V

New Member
I am just curious if there is a way to have the BoM report and sum things like counterbores and cuts. My boss want's the Alibre generated BoM to automatically sum and total all of the machining costs. I've experimented by making what we call "vitural parts". These virtual parts are the exact size and depth of something like a counterbore. I hide them in the drawing, but Alibre will still see it on the BoM. I am assuming that the cost per cut/drill/etc. would have to be added after we export the CSV.

In general this process is not very user friendly. My main question is...is there a way to include machining steps in the BoM. Secondarily, is there a way to have Alibre attach a cost to each machining step?

Many thanks!
 

HaroldL

Alibre Super User
That sounds like a special app outside of Alibre to calculate all the costs in making the part.

When I was working we had an engineer that created a spread sheet in Excel for calculating the cost of an enclosure. It had a tab for each part- body, end. door/cover, etc. Each tab listed all the operations required to produce the part such as Shear, Fab, Form. It also had the number of holes, tapped or thru, C-Bores, extruded. To use the spread sheet you filled in the operations needed and it assigned a time to each feature and calculated the cost based on the hourly rate for the operation in the dept it was performed. It also added overhead and shop supplies and gave the cost for the part. All the parts were added on a Summary page that totaled all the part costs for the final cost of the finished enclosure. It was used by the quoters to give the cost when quoting the build.
 

Max

Administrator
Staff member
You can achieve a great deal of this but it would require a touch of manual data entry:

Step 1: Create Custom Properties
In our example, we've created a custom property for each operation type, of type Precision Number. For each part, we must manually determine the total op cost (per type) for the part and fill it in. So if you have 4 drilling operations that cost $2.05 each, you will fill out 8.20 as the value for Drilling Op Cost in the part data. This is the only manual component of the process.

1662136277907.png

Step 2: Create a BOM Template using Columns
Create a BOM template and click the (new) Summation button and choose the 4 custom properties we made earlier:

1662136385133.png

Our BOM now has the capability to autosum these properties based on part quantity:
1662136473031.png


Step 3: Add Summation Rows
For each Summation Column you added, right click on its header cell, go to Column, and select Show Summation Row:
1662136537967.png

Doing this for each column adds 4 summation row values:
1662136625356.png

Step 4: Apply this BOM template to a design
Simply choose this BOM template as the desired template when making a BOM for an assembly, and the rows will display assembly-level totals and they will be summed up at the bottom:
1662136730520.png
 

Jim V

New Member
That sounds like a special app outside of Alibre to calculate all the costs in making the part.

When I was working we had an engineer that created a spread sheet in Excel for calculating the cost of an enclosure. It had a tab for each part- body, end. door/cover, etc. Each tab listed all the operations required to produce the part such as Shear, Fab, Form. It also had the number of holes, tapped or thru, C-Bores, extruded. To use the spread sheet you filled in the operations needed and it assigned a time to each feature and calculated the cost based on the hourly rate for the operation in the dept it was performed. It also added overhead and shop supplies and gave the cost for the part. All the parts were added on a Summary page that totaled all the part costs for the final cost of the finished enclosure. It was used by the quoters to give the cost when quoting the build.
Unfortunately the goal is to have Alibre automate the entire process. In the end I'll have to explain why we can't, and a good alternative. Something similar to your process is a good base for an alternative.
 

Max

Administrator
Staff member
I imagine there is a way you could do this with Alibre Script. Might need to get some help or pay someone here to write it for you. But for example:

Name each feature something like "Drill - .125 - 3.20" <Opname - Size - Cost>

The script would parse all feature names and then use the data it has found to populate part data for you automatically. From there the rest of the process might work as I've outlined. There are details to work out I'm sure but it sounds doable. Assuming you've modeled the features in the order of machining operation, this could also be used to populate an excel file for example. You could run this on an assembly as well, in theory, and it would just crack open each part and iterate. There's a lot you can do with Script.
 

GIOV

Alibre Super User
I have a little old software add- in to Rhino that is really good for my specific need that also give the chance of add Cost:
Something like this it is feasible with AD.
1662141671058.png
The lightship for example is very accurate:
1662141848998.png
 

bolsover

Senior Member
@Jim V
Job costing can be devilish tricky and counting all those holes, counterbores, tool changes, labour and setup cots can quickly become quite burdensome. Is there some alternative, simple metric that could be used?
Years ago, I worked in electronics manufacturing. We would cost the materials, count all the parts, sorting by the number of leads and whether surface mount or conventional, manually or automatically placed on the PCB. We would calculate machine and work station setup times, add factors for this and that. Eventually everything was entered into a spreadsheet and we would agonise over the last decimal place and percentage point. It was accurate, we made profit, life was good. Of course, eventually it all came down to Material, Labour and Overhead with Profit thrown in for good measure.

It took some time but we realised that Labour and Overhead were largely fixed. The only real variable was Material. We greatly simplified our job costing strategy: Material was 50% of selling price. Yes, some jobs were more profitable than others but in the grand scheme it didn't matter. Overall, we continued to make good profit on every job.

My point is don't get too hung up on the minutiae - there is often a simpler way.
 
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