A 60-second video was all it took to show that they do.
There are valuable features bundled up in MTI’s package. From the looks of it, Costimator appears to work fast. Once a part has been uploaded to the software’s 3DFX feature recognition package, faces and features can be selected. A click of a button will dump geometric information into MTI’s software, where it produces a price instantly.
While Costimator does seem easy to use, it requires a bit of setup. A user has to define in Costimator a number of costing variables (type of milling machine, post-processing steps, inspection) before the program can run a solution. And that makes sense, right? How else are you going to accurately determine what a part’s going to cost? You surely won’t get any accuracy using a generic mill with generic material in an on-shore production facility (especially if you’re manufacturing overseas).
So all in all, Costimator seems to do its job. It takes your model, compares it to a spreadsheet of data and spits out a cost.
Great, but what’s that good for?
Today, engineers are asked to both design and manage costs. What once was the job of management has been increasingly thrust upon those whose only job was to come up with an inspired design. Though that kind of extra work might not be too tough for a simple product, imagine having to keep an arbitrary budget in mind when designing a product that’s complicated, uses expensive materials, or fits into an enormous assembly.
In cases like that, a tool like Costimator is likely to save money, reduce iterations and maybe even get products to market faster. (For the time being, we’ll just leave alone all of the engineering headaches it might prevent as well.)
So, yeah, I do think third-party cost estimators have some value.
Will that value be there in a few years? That’s up for some debate.
I don’t think it’s too far of a stretch to see even more robust systems than MTI’s becoming native in major CAD packages. CAM tooling is already becoming standard, so it seems like the next evolution toward an all-encompassing CAD environment can and should require costing.
Will the likes of SOLIDWORKS, Solid Edge, Fusion360 and others make a go of adding this type of functionality? If anyone does, it could be a compelling enough reason to switch software.
Ironically, Costimator’s own cost was not available. For that you’ll have to call their sales team.