aPriori announces the release of a new version of the company’s flagship product, aPriori Professional 2019 R1. The new release expands the company’s portfolio of out-of-the-box (OOB) manufacturing cost models, introduces an expanded collection of design to cost (DTC) guidance and reports, and includes more than 200 individual product enhancements driven through collaboration with the company’s expanding customer base.
Furthermore, the company is announcing the achievement of a major milestone with the introduction of the first suite of costing applications available in the cloud. The new Software as a Service (SaaS) offering includes aPriori Professional and a new application, Cost Insight Design. This lightweight web application was developed in collaboration with a group of key customers who were looking for a streamlined version of aPriori that was easy to deploy, easy to learn, and can be utilized by design engineers to quickly identify and eliminate manufacturability and cost drivers in the earliest phases of design and consider cost and manufacturability in trade studies.
Highlights of aPriori Professional 2019 R1
New and Enhanced Cost Models
With aPriori Professional 2019 R1, the company continues its commitment to expanding the suite of OOB manufacturing cost models that enable quick and easy analysis of product designs. New and enhanced cost models available with this release include:
- Plastics – new insert molding and over molding cost models; expanded DTC feedback
- Machining – automated analysis of pockets and slots on components that require machining and tool size selection improvements to make these features
- Welding & Bonding – new TIG welding and adhesive bonding cost models. Along with MIG welding updates and improvements to automatically read ProWELD and estimate the welding process for these welds on a component
- Mechanical Assembly – new lockbolt and threaded inserts cost models
- Casting - die casting and sand-casting updates to improve the cycle time estimate precision and expand DTC feedback to include more manufacturability checks
- Secondary Processes - new vibratory deburr, shot peening and hot isostatic pressing cost models now available
Design to Cost Reports
aPriori Cost Insight Report 2019 R1 now provides access to DTC metric data from major manufacturing process groups. aPriori Professional and Cost Insight Design simulate the physical manufacturing process and identify potential manufacturability issues and cost drivers. Cost Insight Report then captures and stores counts, ratios and other time related metrics from several categories, including violations of design standards, geometric cost driver counts, tolerances, slow operations, manufacturing issues and more. Data generated from this analysis can be presented to the end user via a suite of OOB or ad hoc reports.
The four new OOB reports included in aPriori Cost Insight Report enable project leaders to quickly identify parts with high DTC scores that would be good candidates for redesign to improve manufacturability or reduce cost.
