Glossary

If a scenario is set to

• Active: It automatically updates to match CAD changes.

• Inactive: It does not automatically updates to match CAD changes.

A tool that is either available at the machining area being modeled or available in a machine tool catalog. Tools usually have a make for example, and a model, for example, Corobore 860. A particular model is available in a series of sizes (usually diameters).

The amortized sum of all fixed costs. Fixed costs must be incurred before the start of production. In aPriori, all fixed costs are amortized to the individual part or assembly by dividing the total, up-front cost for the fixed cost (the capital cost) by the Total Product Volume.

The total number of parts or assemblies of a specific design produced in one year.

Provides admin functions for your aPriori solution, including Scenario Export, System Data Export, Scenario Synchronization, LDAP Synchronization and Digital Factory Synchronization. See aP Admin Overview.

Provide detailed reports on data for your products. Create custom dashboards to consistently monitor new product initiatives against Design to Cost targets. See aP Analytics User Guide.

Part of the aP Generate solution, aP Connect enables you to create workflows that automatically cost components, generate reports, and share the resulting data with members of your team. See aP Connect documentation.

Analyzes CAD models, estimates cost for assemblies and parts, and identifies design for manufacturing (DFM), design to cost (DTC), and sustainability issues. See aP Design documentation.

Provides cost estimates, design guidance, and sustainability insights to your product design, engineering, cost engineering, sourcing, and manufacturing organizations. See aPriori Documentation.

A co-working application for managing scenario tasks and collaborating seamlessly with internal stakeholders on product cost, manufacturability, and sustainability. See aP Workspace documentation.

A welding process that uses the concentrated heat of an electric arc between an electrode and the base material to melt the metals at the welding point. Depending on the material to be welded, either direct or alternating current may be used for the arc, and consumable or non-consumable electrodes.

An assembly of parts as defined by the MCAD system part/assembly tree.

• Normally, an assembly has more than one part.

• Technically, however, the MCAD system might allow an assembly with only one part.

• Parts in assembly are oriented to one another and secured by an assembly process, such as welding or snap-fit.

• An assembly cost object comprises the costs of all the member parts or sub-assemblies associated with it, as well as the cost of the orientation and securing of the members in the assembly.

• Costs of assembling the sub-assembly components are included in the total cost of those components.

The number of parts in a Set-up Batch. Typically, batch sizes represent one month of sales.

A prismatic box enclosing the final part shape. The orientation of the bounding box determines the minimum stock size and the orientation of the part within the stock.

Simultaneously cost multiple component scenarios.

A value used to compute the diameter of the default bulk removal tool and the characteristics of the bulk removal skin.

See "Document Cache".

Using aP Pro without it being directly connected to a CAD application. Contrasts with Direct Integration Mode.

The total amount a company must invest in fixed costs before the first part or assembly can be made. This cost is 'fixed' because the company incurs the cost whether it makes one part or the total number of parts allowable before tooling must be refurbished or replaced.

See CO2e

The total amount of greenhouse gases (GHGs) emitted by manufacturing a part, based on both materials and process used. aPriori can calculate and help you reduce carbon footprint, using the Sustainability insights module.

The process of forming an object by pouring material into a mold, where it solidifies. Also, the process of forming a film or sheet by pouring a liquid onto a moving belt or by precipitation in a chemical bath.

The space inside a mold into which material is injected.

A a standard unit for measuring greenhouse gas emissions, based on the global warming potential (GWP) of different greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide (CO2).

A CO2e unit measures the impact of each different greenhouse gas in terms of the amount of CO2 that would create the same amount of warming, to give a single number to measure a carbon footprint using many different greenhouse gases. For example, 1 kg CO2e is equivalent to 1 kilogram of carbon dioxide and other equivalent greenhouse gases.

A part or assembly used in a design.

• Part: a non-assembled component.

• Assembly: two or more components (child components or subcomponents).

Software applications that enable interactive engineering drawing and electronic storage of mechanical designs geometry, physical configuration, materials of construction.

A tabular list of each member of the comparison (rows) and the associated cost/time information (columns).

The process of calculating the probable cost of a product or service, including labor, material, vendor/supplier costs, and applicable rates and factors.

Modules that connect aPriori applications to supported CAD applications, such as CREO, Catia and Solidworks. These plugins allow you to launch aPriori analysis of your designs, directly from these applications.

Also known as CAD system plugin.

Another term for Manufacturing Process Model.

An entity that has costs associated with it. aPriori has three different types of cost objects: parts, assemblies, and cost roll-ups.

The direct expenses incurred in producing a particular good for sale, including the actual cost of materials that comprise the good and the direct labor expense in the good in salable condition. COGS does not include indirect expenses such as office expenses, accounting, shipping department (although it may contain shipping costs), advertising, and other expenses that cannot be attributed to a particular item for sale. COGS for a manufacturing company include things like basic materials plus the costs of production, supplies, and labor.

Cost of tooling amortized at an individual component (part or assembly) level by Total Production Volume.

A list of components (parts and assemblies) and their associated costs/times.

The cost target for the component (part or assembly)

The structure and linkages within aPriori that describe different Cost Categories. The Cost Taxonomy is canonically defined by aPriori. All parts of the Cost Taxonomy are linked; however, not all are directly additive. The Cost Taxonomy is the “architecture” of Cost in aPriori.

A unit of cost. The default currency is US dollars.

The time that a machine/process is operating on a given component (part or assembly).

Costing an assembly and all its child components, including sub-assemblies. The total cost is calculated as the sum of the costs of all sub-components.

The practice of designing products to optimize their manufacturing ease.

The practice of designing products to optimize their costs.

A metal shaping process in which molten metal is forced into a reusable mold and held under pressure until it solidifies.

A virtual group of machines, work centers, processes, process routings, and process groups that represents a production environment at a customer or at a supplier.

This representation includes the physical situation speeds, feeds, manufacturing times and the cost structure of the Digital Factory labor rates, overheads.

Typically, all the elements of a Digital Factory in one physical location, analogous to a factory. However, this may vary from customer to customer.

The user of the aPriori Digital Factory Administration Client.

Using aP Pro when it is directly integrated with a CAD application. Contrasts with CAD-independent mode.

Costs associated with manufacturing of a specific part on a machine, such as the machine's power costs, depreciation, maintenance, and , based on time.

A folder in which Digital Factory information is saved from the database. This cache improves the performance of aPriori, especially when the clients are not located within the same LAN as the database server. It eliminates the need to extract large amounts of data from the database each time a part is costed. See the aPriori System Administration Guide for information about doc cache cleaning options.

Refers to the factor applied to equate one currency amount to another currency amount. For example, 1 USD = 1.1895 Euro.

Tooling that is consumed during manufacturing, but not tied to a specific part. For example, a drill bit, turret press punchis used in the manufacture of many different part designs.

A circular continuous channel cut into an external feature of a part.

A thread that is formed on an external feature of a part.

The use of a solvent to remove (extract) one or more components from a mixture; generally, the process of removing a desired or undesired constituent.

The process of forming rods, tubes, or other continuously formed pieces by pushing hot or cold semisoft solid material through a die.

The selection name for a Digital Factory.

Similar to Good Part Yield, but calculated for all downstream processes rather than just the current process.

Devices used to hold a part or an assembly in the correct orientation on a machine during manufacture or assembly. Fixtures and jigs under the Fixed Cost category are created for a specific design. It is assumed that these fixtures not be re-used on a different design in the future.

A process where the desired shape is accomplished by forming in presses, hammers, rolls, upsetters, and related machinery to deform the workpiece.

The process that produces a useful shape by making any change in the shape of a metal piece which does not intentionally reduce the metal thickness. The term covers all operations required to form a flat sheet into a part, including deep drawing, stretching, bending, and buckling in the context of sheet metal.

A feature of a part’s design that drives manufacturing cost, such as a surface, hole, or bend.

See Tolerances.

Indicates the amount of warming a geenhouse gas causes over a given time period (normally 100 years), compared to CO2 (carbon dioxide gas) which has a baseline value of 1.

(Sometimes called Throughput Yield or TPY)
The percentage of parts manufactured with no errors. You can override aP Pro's default GPY value of "1" (100%) for a part.

The process that removes material from a workpiece using a grinding wheel or coated abrasives.

A process in which grooves are cut to a specified depth in one pass by a form tool. Grooving does not sever a complete section from the workpiece.

Capital or hard tooling are tools that are purchased for creating one specific design and cannot be used to create other designs.

Runners that are insulated from the chilled cavities in a mold and are kept hot. Hot-runner molds make parts that have no scrap.

The scenario that is created when you first open then cost a component.

A shaping process in which thermoplastic material is fed into a heated barrel, mixed, and forced into a mold cavity, where it cools and hardens to the configuration of the mold cavity.

A circular continuous channel cut into an internal feature of a part.

A thread that is formed on an internal feature of a part.

The amount that labor is paid to manufacture the part or assembly. During the building of a Digital Factory, the customer determines which components of labor compensation are included in the labor rate that is used to calculate labor cost. However, labor cost usually includes hourly wages and benefits.

The time that a person is paid to perform an operation/process on one component (part or assembly).

A mechanism for raising a part in a die or mold to a height for advancing it to another station, or for ejecting it from the die or mold.

The aPriori representation of a physical machine in a manufacturing facility.

The process in which a shape is generated by removing unwanted material. Shape restrictions exist for some machining processes. For example, turning can only produce axisymmetric shapes.

An action performed as part of a machining technique. Typically, an operation is performed with a single tool.

A description of the method used to manufacture a GCD. Some GCDs, such as holes, may be manufactured with a variety of techniques, each technique having its own scope of use and advantages. A machining technique typically requires one or more manufacturing operations to be performed.

The cost associated for a person to perform only the arcing to MIG weld one assembly.

The time for a person to perform only the arcing to MIG weld one assembly.

The time for a person to perform all the tasks to weld one assembly or example, loading, clamping, arcing.

The cost associated for a person to perform only the arcing to spot weld one assembly.

The time for a person to perform only the arcing to spot weld one assembly.

A software module that models the manufacturing processes for a particular process group.

Also known as Cost Model.

The chemical composition/alloy/name of the material of which a part is made.

The specific chemical composition of the material in industry standard termsfor example, ANSI spec, such as 1020 Hot Rolled Q1

The cost of the physical material used in the manufacture of the part. Material Cost includes both the material in the physical part and an allocation of scrap material that is wasted during the manufacturing process. Material cost does not include consumable material weld wire, adhesives, only primary material.

The physical size of the piece from which a part is made, for example, sheet size for sheet metal, rod diameter and length for a shaft. For net form processes such as injection molding and casting, sizing is not applicable.

The general class of metal, for example, Steel, Nylon, Brass, Aluminum. Although type is really a parent class, it functions as an attribute of composition in aPriori, rather than its parent.

A measure of waste in manufacturing defined as:
Gross Mass of a Part \ Rough Mass

Refer to Computer-Aided Design (CAD).

The cost associated with manipulating the MIG gun.

The time allowance for a person to move between welds, clean, and manipulate the MIG gun.

Metal Inert Gas (MIG) welding is often referred to as wire-feed welding. It is a commonly used high deposition rate welding process. During the welding process, wire is continuously fed from a spool. MIG welding is sometimes referred to as a semi-automatic welding process.

A cutting process in which material is removed from a workpiece by a rotating tool.

The process of introducing new products to market. It spans the entire product life cycle from initial identification of market/technology opportunity, conception, design and development through to production, market launch, support, enhancement and retirement.

A driver of part or assembly cost not directly tied to geometry. Examples include the factory of the supplier at which the part is made, selected routings, selected machines, production volume.

The number of years that the component (part or assembly) will be produced.

The scenario which opens by default when you open a component.

Other costs that can be specifically associated with the manufacture of a given design. In contrast, indirect cost or period overheads (not covered in aPriori) are expenses such as rent or lighting that are not easily allocated to a specific design. In an accounting system, direct costs typically become part of Cost of Goods Sold, whereas indirect costs are expensed every financial period as part of ales, General, and Administrative (SG&A) expense. Other direct costs could be preventative maintenance expenses tied to a given machine, a material handling additive, and so forth.

A single component that cannot be further subdivided into other cost object, as opposed to an assembly.

The unique component (part or assembly) identifier, typically specified as the CAD file name.  Note that this may or may not actually include a part number.

The location where two mold halves meet when they are closed.

The marginal cost associated with making “one more” part of a given design. Piece part cost includes all Variable Costs associated with a parts creation but does not include depreciation of capital tooling. It does include expandable tooling.

Used to compute the pocket roughing tool diameter and the characteristics of the pocket's removal skin.

The manufacturing process that a given type of machine performs (for example, Laser Cut, Standard Press, Plasma Cut).

The cost associated with a particular type of manufacturing process that a machine performs.

The aPriori logic and formulas that read Geometric Cost Drivers (GCDs) and non-geometric cost drivers as input calculate time and cost.

A group of processes of the same manufacturing type. For example, the Sheet Metal process group includes such processes as Laser Cut, Bend Brake, Shear. Parts may often be completely manufactured using processes in one process group only. Other times a part or an assembly require multiple process groups, for example, Casting, Machining, and Surface Treatment.

A sequence of processes that are used in sequence to add a group of manufacturing features to a part, and often, to complete the manufacture of a given part or sub-assemblyfor example, CTL/LAS/BND.

The body of activities and processes associated with acquiring materials, goods, and services to support the operation of the enterprise.

Information added to CAD models to specify non-geometric attributes needed to manufacture a part, PMI can be:

• Non-semantic or “graphical” PMI: textual annotations to the CAD model.

• Semantic PMI: annotations implemented as machine-readable metadata.

aPriori can import PMI from supported CAD systems for use in analysis.

Many modern machines are Computer Numerical Control (CNC) machines that follow a computer program to make or assemble parts. A program be created oncetherefore, it is part of Fixed Cost.

The cost associated for a robot to perform only the arcing to MIG weld one assembly.

The time for a robot to perform only the arcing to MIG weld one assembly.

The time for a robot and its operator to perform all the tasks to weld one assembly loading, clamping, arcing, and so on.

The cost associated for a robot to perform only the arcing to spot weld one assembly.

The time for a robot to perform only the arcing to spot weld one assembly.

A set of components: can include parts, virtual parts, assemblies, and other roll-ups. Similar to an assembly, but has no associated CAD component and process costs.

The mass of all the material that needed to get to the final state of the part. The sum of Finished Mass + Gross Part Mass + Mass of Stock Scrap.

The irregularities in the surface texture which result from the production process. You can define roughness requirements for GCDs, and import these values from CAD model Product Manufacturing Information (PMI) attributes. Also see Tolerances.

The list of Process Routings associated with a Digital Factory.

Refer to Routing Rules.

The heuristics (typically Boolean) that help aPriori to determine if a Process Routing is capable of manufacturing a given cost object by looking at the physical capabilities of a machine. For example, if a Sheet Metal Process Routing contains a Turret Press process, aPriori verifies that at least one of the turret presses in the Virtual Production Environment has the force to punch through the given thickness of the sheet metal. If not, this Process Routing is eliminated from the analysis.

An instance of a Full Cost Driver Record that is dynamic, that is, non-geometric cost drivers can be modified to regenerate cost completely independent of CAD. In addition, it can have new GCDs applied to it and be evaluated with the current set of non-geometric cost drivers.

Scrap is unused material that is commonly thrown away as useless material or sold to a scrap merchant. Scrap may be part scrap considered inherently part of the material needed to produce the part or stock scrap that is not “part of the part”, for example, internal holes, that could possibly be used for other parts.

The number of parts run before machines must be set up for new or different parts.

The cost to set up a machine for a new batch of parts.

The time to set up a machine for a new batch of parts.

The cost in machine downtime and labor incurred when a machine is configured to run a batch of a given design. This cost is amortized to individual parts or assemblies by the number of parts in a batch.

A significant use of aPriori, providing an estimate of a supplier’s costs to deliver a component. You can use this estimate to assess an appropriate figure to guide negotiations, or to compare with a figure provided by a supplier.

Used when molding parts in cavities not perpendicular to the direction in which the part is ejected from the mold. The cores are automatically pulled from the mold prior to the mold opening and reinserted when the mold closes again and prior to injection.

The cost associated with manipulating the spot-welding gun.

The time allowance for a person to move between welds, clean, and manipulate the spot-welding gun.

The process in which contacting metal surfaces are joined by the heat obtained from resistance to electric current flow. Workpieces are held together under pressure exerted by electrodes.

The physical form of the stock such as sheet, coil, hex bar, rectangular billet, pellet. Note that stock form does not apply to net form processes Injection Molding, Casting, Powdered Metals, Extrusions.

The defining dimensions of the stock form or example

• Sheet: Length, Width, Thickness

• Rectangular Billet: Length, Width, Height

• Round Bar: Diameter, Length

• Pellet: N/A does not apply to net form processes such as Injection Molding, Casting, Powdered Metals, Extrusions.

A measure of the component's bounding box size relative to the material stock size. If the size gap is above a certain threshold, which indicates excessive material waste, the system may trigger the creation of virtual stock rather than choose actual stock.

A member of an assembly.

See Roughness.

The practice of minimizing a product’s environmental impact (carbon footprint) by analysis of its design, sourcing, production, and lifecycle.

The aPriori Sustainability Insights module helps manufacturers determine the carbon footprint of their manufacturing processes, by calculating how much carbon is emitted during the manufacture of products and during the production of the materials that go into those products. This helps you create a carbon baseline, better understand how design, material, and supplier selections make up the product's carbon footprint, and determine the best actions to reduce a product's carbon footprint.

The number of threads per inch in the Imperial System or the distance between threads in the metric system.

A machining process that uses a single-point tool to produce a uniform helical thread form on the internal or external surface of a cylinder or cone.

Allowable variations for a part, including dimensions, form, and orientation. You can import these values from a CAD design, or specify them manually. Also see Roughness.

The general type of tool that is being costed such as Blanking Die, or Cam-actuated Die.

The speed at which a tool can cut material depends on the material from which it is made.

Two high-level types of tool material are

• High Speed Steel

• Carbide.

High Speed Steel tools are often cheaper but cut slower than Carbide tools. Each tool series has a tool material property.

A tool series is either an actual toolmaker's model milling tool offered in a variety of sizes or a virtual tool for a given tool type provided in a very wide variety of sizes. A tool series has a tool material property.

A general category of machining tool, such as Straight Drill, Flat Bottom Mill.

The process in which the major motion of the cutting tool is parallel to the axis of rotation of the rotating workpiece, producing cylindrical external surfaces.

The category of tooling under which the tool falls. That is, Hard Tooling Capital Tooling is treated as a fixed cost or Expendable Tooling treated as a direct variable cost.

A part with no associated CAD model created directly in aPriori for costing purposes only. A virtual part can be included in roll-ups and comparisons. A virtual part must have a unique name among all components, including CAD-referenced parts and assemblies, and other virtual parts.

A placeholder for material stock that does not exist for the Digital Factory. Virtual stock is used in an analysis when no stock is available in the Digital Factory.

A placeholder for an actual tool that does not exist for the Digital Factory. Virtual tools are used in an analysis when no feasible tool can be found or when you prefer to perform an analysis virtual tools.

An organizational group of machines. A workcenter often contains machines of the same process type which may be closely grouped on the manufacturing floor.