Case Studies SFI Speeds Response Times and Business Growth with aPriori

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	SFI Speeds Response Times and Business Growth with aPriori

SFI Speeds Response Times and Business Growth with aPriori

Technology Category	Analytics & Modeling - Predictive Analytics Application Infrastructure & Middleware - Data Exchange & Integration Functional Applications - Product Lifecycle Management Systems (PLM)
Applicable Industries	Automotive Construction & Infrastructure
Applicable Functions	Product Research & Development Quality Assurance Sales & Marketing
Use Cases	Digital Twin Predictive Maintenance Process Control & Optimization
Services	Software Design & Engineering Services System Integration Training
Challenge	For any contract manufacturer, accurate and timely project quoting is a critical success factor. It can make the difference between winning and losing business and making and losing money. And like many others, SFI’s estimators used its own unique blend of different cost calculators, spreadsheets and off-the-shelf cost management tools. It was all very manual and time consuming. In most cases, SFI’s Cost Estimators had to analyze a series of 2-D drawings and then add in each, different attributes, runs rates, parts and labor costs. A big project with 500 different parts could takes weeks or more to quote. In some cases, SFI was getting 3-D models from customers and then taking the time to turn them into 2-D prints. This created a lot of unnecessary extra work and extended the quoting time frame from days to weeks. All this manual effort meant more time spent responding to customer quote requests, more overhead, difficult tradeoffs on priorities and even “no-quoting” some jobs which negatively impacted potential future business. SFI’s estimating team felt it was always playing catch up. Every customer wanted their quotes yesterday because they were likely already behind on their own schedule. Read More
About Customer	SFI (Steel Fabrication Inc.) provides contract design, development, supply and value-added services for medium to heavy gauge components to a select group of original equipment manufacturers (OEM) in the agricultural, automotive, construction, industrial, transportation and defense industries. This includes welded parts for commercial automotive manufacturers and vehicle sub-frames for the U.S. military. Since its founding in 1956, the company has grown to become the leading OEM parts manufacturer in the nation. Today it employs over 600 skilled professionals and operates three locations in Memphis, Tennessee; Conway, Arkansas and New Boston, Ohio. Together these facilities provide over one million square feet of state-of-the-art production space fully dedicated to steel fabrication solutions. This enables SFI to offer a full spectrum of process operations, including press brake, roll forming, coil processing, laser cutting, stamping, welding, machining, powder coat painting and assembly. Whether an OEM needs press braking capability up to 28 feet, stamping presses up to 2000 tons or a 5 axis machining center to handle a 40 ton part, SFI has all the capabilities to handle it quickly and efficiently. Read More
Solution	Sale engineers and cost management expert Hashim Alsaffar joined SFI in September 2010. At that time, SFI was piloting a new product cost management solution from aPriori. He remembers hearing about it when he was interviewing and he was intrigued. With aPriori, SFI said it could quickly and accurately cost out any part or product from a CAD model. It was very compelling to me as a candidate and I saw a lot of potential with the capability. If it did what they said it could, we could really accelerate our response time and accuracy on project quotes. It seemed like a really big competitive advantage. Since then, Alsaffar has become the go to person at SFI for all things related to aPriori. With aPriori, we get ahead of the whole process,” says Alsaffar. We can respond more quickly to customer requests for quotes, respond to more requests overall, and equally important, see immediately whether or not a job is really in our sweet spot. This is good for both SFI and the customer. It makes us a better, value-added supplier because aPriori makes our team and our customers more knowledgeable about the requirements of a project. It also has a positive effect on the customer's overall time to market. The key is aPriori’s ability to quickly analyze any part or product from a CAD model and break it down to the lowest possible level of cost detail. aPriori also provides complete CAD independence. It can work with 3D CAD models generated by any major CAD modeling system on the market today, including: Pro/ENGINEER, CATIA v5, Siemens NX, Solidworks, SolidEdge and Inventor to name a few. So, no matter what type of CAD model the customer sends, aPriori can quickly open that model and generate a cost estimate in seconds. You don’t even have to own a license of the source CAD system to open the model in aPriori. Read More Log in to view content
Contents

Technology Category

Analytics & Modeling - Predictive Analytics

Application Infrastructure & Middleware - Data Exchange & Integration

Functional Applications - Product Lifecycle Management Systems (PLM)

Applicable Industries

Automotive

Construction & Infrastructure

Applicable Functions

Product Research & Development

Quality Assurance

Sales & Marketing

Use Cases

Digital Twin

Predictive Maintenance

Process Control & Optimization

Services

Software Design & Engineering Services

System Integration

Training

Challenge

For any contract manufacturer, accurate and timely project quoting is a critical success factor. It can make the difference between winning and losing business and making and losing money. And like many others, SFI’s estimators used its own unique blend of different cost calculators, spreadsheets and off-the-shelf cost management tools. It was all very manual and time consuming. In most cases, SFI’s Cost Estimators had to analyze a series of 2-D drawings and then add in each, different attributes, runs rates, parts and labor costs. A big project with 500 different parts could takes weeks or more to quote. In some cases, SFI was getting 3-D models from customers and then taking the time to turn them into 2-D prints. This created a lot of unnecessary extra work and extended the quoting time frame from days to weeks. All this manual effort meant more time spent responding to customer quote requests, more overhead, difficult tradeoffs on priorities and even “no-quoting” some jobs which negatively impacted potential future business. SFI’s estimating team felt it was always playing catch up. Every customer wanted their quotes yesterday because they were likely already behind on their own schedule.

About Customer

SFI (Steel Fabrication Inc.) provides contract design, development, supply and value-added services for medium to heavy gauge components to a select group of original equipment manufacturers (OEM) in the agricultural, automotive, construction, industrial, transportation and defense industries. This includes welded parts for commercial automotive manufacturers and vehicle sub-frames for the U.S. military. Since its founding in 1956, the company has grown to become the leading OEM parts manufacturer in the nation. Today it employs over 600 skilled professionals and operates three locations in Memphis, Tennessee; Conway, Arkansas and New Boston, Ohio. Together these facilities provide over one million square feet of state-of-the-art production space fully dedicated to steel fabrication solutions. This enables SFI to offer a full spectrum of process operations, including press brake, roll forming, coil processing, laser cutting, stamping, welding, machining, powder coat painting and assembly. Whether an OEM needs press braking capability up to 28 feet, stamping presses up to 2000 tons or a 5 axis machining center to handle a 40 ton part, SFI has all the capabilities to handle it quickly and efficiently.

Solution

Sale engineers and cost management expert Hashim Alsaffar joined SFI in September 2010. At that time, SFI was piloting a new product cost management solution from aPriori. He remembers hearing about it when he was interviewing and he was intrigued. With aPriori, SFI said it could quickly and accurately cost out any part or product from a CAD model. It was very compelling to me as a candidate and I saw a lot of potential with the capability. If it did what they said it could, we could really accelerate our response time and accuracy on project quotes. It seemed like a really big competitive advantage. Since then, Alsaffar has become the go to person at SFI for all things related to aPriori. With aPriori, we get ahead of the whole process,” says Alsaffar. We can respond more quickly to customer requests for quotes, respond to more requests overall, and equally important, see immediately whether or not a job is really in our sweet spot. This is good for both SFI and the customer. It makes us a better, value-added supplier because aPriori makes our team and our customers more knowledgeable about the requirements of a project. It also has a positive effect on the customer's overall time to market. The key is aPriori’s ability to quickly analyze any part or product from a CAD model and break it down to the lowest possible level of cost detail. aPriori also provides complete CAD independence. It can work with 3D CAD models generated by any major CAD modeling system on the market today, including: Pro/ENGINEER, CATIA v5, Siemens NX, Solidworks, SolidEdge and Inventor to name a few. So, no matter what type of CAD model the customer sends, aPriori can quickly open that model and generate a cost estimate in seconds. You don’t even have to own a license of the source CAD system to open the model in aPriori.

Impact #1	SFI delivers an accurate quote back to the customer faster.
Impact #2	The customer is able to make an outsourcing decision faster and with more confidence.
Impact #3	SFI’s engineering teams can use the information available in aPriori — routing, parts, etc. to get a head start on the sourcing and production planning.

Impact #1

SFI delivers an accurate quote back to the customer faster.

Impact #2

The customer is able to make an outsourcing decision faster and with more confidence.

Impact #3

SFI’s engineering teams can use the information available in aPriori — routing, parts, etc. to get a head start on the sourcing and production planning.

Benefit #1	SFI can now generate quotes in a couple of days instead of weeks.
Benefit #2	Updating quotes with additional information takes minutes instead of half a day.
Benefit #3	Weld rates comparison shows aPriori takes a couple of hours vs. a couple of days by welders.

Benefit #1

SFI can now generate quotes in a couple of days instead of weeks.

Benefit #2

Updating quotes with additional information takes minutes instead of half a day.

Benefit #3

Weld rates comparison shows aPriori takes a couple of hours vs. a couple of days by welders.

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Overview

SFI Speeds Response Times and Business Growth with aPriori

Operational Impact

Quantitative Benefit