Abstract
Elobau, a Germany-based manufacturer of sensor technology and operator interface controls for industrial machines and off-highway vehicles, sought to reduce the effort and complexity of product and tool cost calculations, identify cost-saving opportunities, define and monitor target costs, and minimize quotation processing time. Existing spreadsheet-based calculation methods were inconsistent across regions and business segments, making it difficult to standardize costing data, track costs, and respond quickly to customer changes. By implementing Siemens’ Teamcenter product cost management software, elobau established a structured, database-based environment that connected product and tool cost calculations, standardized costing processes, and improved access to calculation data. The solution enabled elobau to identify cost-saving potential for new products, optimize series production costs, reduce discrepancies between quotation and final costing, and process 40 percent more quotations efficiently. It also helped the company double the number of projects processed in target costing, while making quotation calculations faster, more accurate, and less error-prone.
Key Takeaways:
- Reduced quotation processing time: Teamcenter optimized elobau’s quotation calculation processes, reducing the time required for quoting by 40 percent.
- Standardized cost calculation: Teamcenter established a structured and standardized approach to product and tool cost calculations across the organization.
- Improved costing data accessibility: A centralized database made calculation data easier to access and enabled different teams to work with consistent information.
- Identified cost-saving opportunities: The solution helped elobau identify cost-saving potential for new products and optimize costs for series production.
- Reduced costing discrepancies: Teamcenter reduced deviations between preliminary quotation costing and final product costing, improving costing accuracy.
- Doubled target-costing project capacity: Elobau doubled the number of projects processed in target costing, increasing the efficiency of its costing operations.
- Integrated product and tool costing: Teamcenter connected product and tool costs within a single system, allowing elobau to evaluate how tool-cost changes influence overall product costs.
- Automated tool cost calculations: Using NX Feature2Cost, elobau could identify cost-driving geometric parameters such as surface area, volume, and wall thickness to calculate mold tool costs more accurately.
- Faster response to customer changes: Despite frequent changes during the quotation phase, elobau could adjust quotations quickly while maintaining flexibility in its costing process.
- Foundation for efficient global costing: Teamcenter gave all participants access to the same data and consistent standards, minimizing errors, simplifying additional variants, producing traceable results, and establishing a structured and standardized global process.
