aPriori, a provider of product cost management (PCM) software solutions, has been selected by CIRCOR International Inc., a leading global manufacturer of valves and other highly engineered products and sub-systems used in the energy, aerospace and industrial markets. The company plans to deploy aPriori’s software in both its Energy and Aerospace & Defense groups to identify and prioritize cost savings opportunities at the product design stage, including its growing engineer-to-order business.
CIRCOR Aerospace & Defense designs, develops and manufactures specialty fluidic control, actuation, and electro-mechanical products for demanding aerospace and defense applications. CIRCOR Energy provides integrated flow control solutions such as highly engineered valves, fittings, pipeline products and services, and associated products, for critical and severe service applications in the oil and gas, power generation and process markets.
“aPriori will enable us to identify costs before they get built into parts and products, eliminating both unnecessary expense and cycle time,” said Nick Williams, V.P Engineering at CIRCOR. “The increased visibility enables us to better meet our customers’ needs, especially in engineer to order, where understanding the cost impact of design decisions is so critical to both customer satisfaction and profitability.”
The aPriori product cost management platform provides manufacturers with real-time cost information on parts and complete products. The software leverages CAD and intelligent cost models to quickly determine feasible manufacturing methods and product costs while generating detailed manufacturing analysis and cost estimates that quantify the impact of changes to product design, materials, manufacturing processes, volumes and location in real time. aPriori also enables manufacturers to leverage product cost data hosted in other enterprise applications to communicate product cost information between all functional organizations involved in product definition and delivery. This includes the import of complex engineering Bills of Materials (BOMs) from ERP, PLM and other enterprise applications. aPriori also incorporates robust business intelligence capabilities that provide intuitive, role-based insights for design, engineering, manufacturing, value-engineering and sourcing executives and managers.
“CIRCOR competes on its ability to meet customer demand for highly engineered parts and systems and these products present unique manufacturing and cost management challenges,” said Stephanie Feraday, president and CEO of aPriori. “By integrating detailed product cost management early in its design and development process, CIRCOR can deliver higher service levels and gain an important advantage over its competition, while also improving their profitability.”