aPriori 2012r2 Cost Management Software Upgrade Released

By DE Editors

aPriori announced the general availability of the newest release of its cost management software. According to the company, aPriori 2012r2 delivers "expanded capabilities that further enable the platform to be deployed across global manufacturing organizations."

The solution also enables customers to more effectively leverage data hosted in other enterprise applications such as ERP and PLM systems, and communicate product cost information between all functional organizations involved in product definition and delivery.

With the upgraded solution, users can import complex engineering Bills of Materials (BOMs) from ERP, PLM or other enterprise applications. BOMs can be organized by unique functional groups, and end users can leverage the core aPriori cost engine to calculate costs for new components and subassembly designs and compare them with target costs. The updated product cost can then be shared across the enterprise so that all functional organizations operate from the same data.

aPriori Virtual Production Environments (VPEs) can now be configured to inherit material and machine data and cost model logic from other VPEs (aPriori's digital representation of a real-world manufacturing factory). This allows customer to more easily expand cost scenarios, study the impact of new tradeoff decisions and streamline system maintenance.

The solution also features simplified creation and refinement of cost estimates through consolidation of inputs into a single menu panel, and expanded capabilities to override preliminary data inputs. Users from different functional groups can be authenticated using LDAP, and updated regional VPEs now accommodate European material naming conventions and machine preferences.

"aPriori has historically done an exceptional job at calculating the cycle time and cost of complex manufacturing operations for components and small product assemblies, represented in a 3D CAD model or assembly design," said Julie Driscoll, aPriori's vice president of strategic product management and marketing. "This new product release elevates our technology platform to a new level, enabling our customers to better integrate and leverage information from other enterprise applications to support cost tracking in NPI projects, evaluate product design alternatives at the functional group or complete product level, and understand the cost implications of different tradeoff decisions. We believe product cost tracking is a critical component to a manufacturer's cost management strategy. aPriori is committed to providing a flexible costing platform that can support the tracking process or output cost information to other systems if a tracking process is already in place."

For more information, visit aPriori.

Sources: Press materials received from the company and additional information gleaned from the company's website.