4cost-cadcal

Precise cost calculations directly on the 3D CAD model

What is 4cost-cadcal?

With the costing software 4cost-cadcal you calculate costs and production times of components, assemblies and systems directly on the 3D model. The software combines the high performance of a standardised calculation tool with the visualisation options of a CAD application.

By using 4cost-cadcal, you identify cost drivers regarding the manufacture already during the development and design phase. For a sustainable reduction of your manufacturing costs and increased cost transparency.

Work scheduling
Guided calculations
Included database and integrated benchmark data

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Areas of application

Product costing
Development-accompanying costing
Design to Cost
Design for manufacturability
Design for assembly
Value analysis

Efficient costing with high transparency

In a competitive environment with shortening product life cycles, companies need to make product-related decisions quickly in order to bring their products to market as quickly as possible and gain an advantage on their competitors.

With 4cost-cadcal, you make the effects of design decisions on the costs of in-house designed components and assemblies visible at an early stage and obtain well-founded results that safeguard you for early decision-making.

Automatic analysis of the 3D geometries

AI 4cost-cadcal supports the one-click import of STEP files, the international file standard for 3D models. To ensure a high precision when calculating, the structure of the component as well as its geometric properties are automatically translated by the software from the imported CAD model and made editable for you. Data that is not directly available on the 3D model can be added manually (e.g. material, manufacturing country, basic processes).

Smart 3D view

With the CAD viewer integrated in 4cost-cadcal, you get a three-dimensional view of your mechanical components to be calculated. For better orientation, you can rotate the displayed 3D model in all directions and zoom in continuously. Individual selections and measurements are possible directly in the viewer and make it easier for you to understand the geometry of the component and the associated work steps. For a quick overview, the status of your calculation is indicated by a colour coding on the 3D model.

For a fast determination of calculation-relevant dimensions, the measurements of selected components can be displayed as an overlay in the 3D CAD viewer.

Work scheduling

For maximum time savings, 4cost-cadcal generates a work plan, e.g. for work preparation, after completion of your calculation. The software takes into account all defined work steps and calculates the associated processing times (cycle times, operating times, set-up times). The number of persons (multi-machine operation), qualification and hourly rate are also included.

Real-time reports in line with demand

4cost-cadcal has a powerful report generator that automatically provides you with the most important information. All generated reports can be exported as PDF. This provides you with meaningful results that the management can use to quickly derive measures, identify opportunities and minimise risks.

4cost-cadcal comes with reporting templates, such as a management report for a quick overview of all relevant key figures. You can adapt all reports to your company-specific needs.

A quick report function provides you with ad hoc detailed cost expenditure and result overviews at any level. To improve the validation and comparability of results 4cost-cadcal shows the total time per part as well as the total cycle time. This data provides you with better arguments for negotiation, plausibility checks and also increases the transparency of your calculations.

Experience 4cost-cadcal live

We would be happy to demonstrate the capabilities of our costing software 4cost-cadcal to you in person.

Request a no-obligation online product demonstration now. Our sales team will contact you shortly.

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Our clients report on their success with 4cost

“The comparison of providers revealed, that 4cost achieved the highest score. We were particularly convinced by the fact that 4cost’s solutions can be used for all commodities, regardless of technology. Equally decisive was the enormous speed with which cost estimates are possible despite limited information.”

Christian Ahrens

Team leader of the Value Engineering department, Rheinmetall Landsysteme GmbH

“A major advantage of the 4cost software is the seamless interlocking of the two costing approaches, top-down and bottom-up. This appeals to a wide variety of cost estimators and ensures a consistent cost view without losing information across all project phases.”

Alexander Nordmeyer

Value Engineer, Rheinmetall Landsysteme GmbH

“The departments experience made with the costing software from 4cost are very positive and associated with high savings. By increasing transparency in the cost structures, a monetary benefit in the seven-digit range can already be recorded. We have made the right decision in our selection process and are very happy about our success!”

Manfred Billes

Department head of the EEPC team, MAN

“From small start-ups to large corporations, costs must be constantly kept in view and controlled, especially in these difficult times. This succeeds very well with the 4cost software and I believe we can generate real added value for our companies.”

Sarah Wörz

Officer, Digitalisierungszentrum Ostwürttemberg

“The consistent calculation method of the 4cost tools convinced us right from the start. Very quickly we realised, that this methodology supports our needs in calculation, value engineering, purchasing and engineering excellently.”

Frank Hoffmann

Head of Supply Chain Management, Rheinmetall Electronics GmbH

“With 4cost's modern parametric calculation models it is possible to estimate good and valid costs already in phases with limited detail of knowledge. In order to establish this, we not only made use of 4cost's software solutions, but also using their expertise in value engineering.”

Senior staff member

Purchasing department, Rolls-Royce

“The 4cost-aces interface is user-friendly and logically structured, especially when compared to other cost estimation tools. This makes it easier to use the tool even for occasional users.”

Thomas Fiedler

Head of Cost Architecture A30X, Future Projects & Costing Performance, Airbus Deutschland

“We decided on 4cost because we see a significant added value for our calculation and value analysis in a consistent approach from quick cost estimates to detailed calculations. We focus now on the main cost drivers and identify areas with the greatest potential for cost optimization.”

Werner Seifried

Technical Director, Liebherr-Hydraulikbagger GmbH (2009)

“With 4cost we have a partner with whom we are implementing our objective of a long-term partnership in the areas of cost estimation, value analysis and cost structure analysis. We will continue to establish 4cost's solutions and use them even more intensively in the future, because the added value is obvious.”

Werner Seifried

Technical Director, Liebherr-Hydraulikbagger GmbH (2009)

“With the parametric cost estimate from 4cost-aces, we are fast and reliably in estimating new assemblies and examine scenarios.”

“With the 4cost-structure calculation tool, we are tracking target costs and manage our projects, including history and versioning.”

Peter Schmidt

Value analysis department, Liebherr-Hydraulikbagger GmbH (2009)

“The partnership-based cooperation with 4cost enables us to arrive at rapid cost estimates for our projects both in-house and directly at our customers site. I would not have expected a calculation of the costs at such an early stage in the product development process with such depth, consideration of variants and meaningfulness of the answers!”

Matthias Miesbeck

Project engineer, HOLZER Firmengruppe

“We were enthusiastic about the speed and cost transparency during the 4cost workshops. We used the results from the workshops as a base for our business case analysis. We froze the cost target as cost reference for the subsequent development process and continuously referenced and checked on them.”

Hinrik Weber

Head of the optoelectronics business unit, Pepperl+Fuchs

“The speed in which the costs are determined is impressive with this method. Elaborate work plans do not have to be predefined and evaluated, because the parametric approach of 4cost-aces is based on material and value-added approaches.”

Ernst Tabel

Project manager, Pepperl+Fuchs

“With 4cost-aces we are able to arrive at valid cost statements very quickly. Compared to a bottom-up calculation that typically takes several weeks, we only need one to three days for the first cost assessment.”

Gregor Schwab

Head of Orders & Offers, Production, EADS Defence & Security

“In addition to the drastic time advantage of this costing method, the workshops have another effect that should not be underestimated: all participants agree on a common costing basis during the meetings and evaluate it in detail. The acceptance of the calculated cost values is very high due to the involvement of all participants.”

Gregor Schwab

Head of Orders & Offers, Production, EADS Defence & Security

“The workshop with the 4cost team was convincing both in terms of methodology and result. We were getting an idea of how the parametric approach of the 4cost-aces costing software works. Many new possibilities could now be approached in our daily work.”

Stefan Buchwald

Strategic buyer, BARD Engineering

“The 4cost solutions enable us to become an extended workbench to the costing departments of companies in our region.”

Peter Schmidt

Head, Digitalisierungszentrum Ostwürttemberg

“The early breakdown of product and project costs with 4cost-aces not only offers us a high level of cost transparency, but in particular shows us optimisation potential for development and design. On the one hand, we are thus able to forecast future manufacturing costs in the case of design changes and on the other hand, to independently check manufacturing costs of already existing designs.”

Martin Klotz

Product Cost Engineer, Liebherr-Werk Biberach GmbH

“The simplicity and speed of creating and comparing different technical, location and quantity scenarios in 4cost-aces is impressive.”

Andreas Müller

Senior Operations and Procurement Manager, AutoFlight Europe

“Thanks to the workshop with 4cost, we received meaningful and transparent results in a short time, which allows us to take measures at an early stage to secure the profitability of our products.”

Andreas Müller

Senior Operations and Procurement Manager, AutoFlight Europe

“The use of 4cost-aces has led to a considerable improvement in our efficiency, as we calculate up to 75 % faster. Cost calculations that would otherwise take us several weeks to complete are done within a few days with 4cost-aces.”

Hanno Pieles

Director Business Unit Performance, newboxes

“4cost-aces has become a valuable tool for our company because we use it to help our clients increase their cost transparency significantly and take their cost management to the next level.”

Hanno Pieles

Director Business Unit Performance, newboxes

"Parametric costing enables us to create valid calculations in the early quotation phases with relatively little effort."

Tim Wiedemann

Systems Engineer, MT Aerospace AG

“Thanks to 4cost-aces, we can plan and implement our projects more efficiently. The software has established itself as an indispensable tool in our development process and contributes significantly to the success of our projects.”

Hannes Büttner

Head of Projects & Value Analysis, BAUER Maschinen GmbH

“The calculations using parametrics are incredibly fast compared to the bottom-up approach, which allows us to react quickly to new requirements and designs. The design-to-cost process is streamlined and requires fewer resources.”

Hannes Büttner

Head of Projects & Value Analysis, BAUER Maschinen GmbH

“With the introduction of 4cost-aces, we have consistently enhanced our established processes. Following an intensive testing and implementation phase, nearly all cost estimates at MTG are now carried out using 4cost-aces.”

Michael Rudius

Head of Operations, MTG Marinetechnik GmbH

“With 4cost-aces, we can now perform calculations even in areas where we previously had to rely on approximate values—such as for project management, documentation, software, and maintenance costs.”

Michael Rudius

Head of Operations, MTG Marinetechnik GmbH

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Optimised processes with reduced error rate

Increase the quality of your calculations and achieve valid results to improve the profitability of your products.

The standardised costing methodology of 4cost-cadcal ensures consistent cost calculations with a high degree of comparability and creates a common, cross-departmental understanding of costs.

Technology-specific calculation templates and workflows

To minimise incorrect entries, 4cost-cadcal offers predefined, guided input workflows for all common value-added processing of workpieces, such as casting, machining, heat treatment and welding, as well as for logistics.

The software automatically reads the product-specific data directly from the CAD model and suggests suitable machines and tools based for your selection. Depending on the nature of the component and the selected tool, a sensible pre-assignment of the technology formulas is carried out so that you can concentrate on the essentials. Information that cannot be derived directly from the STEP file can be added manually and incorporated into the calculation (e.g. dimensions of the raw components, welding information, surface qualities, etc.).

Included and editable databases

Save a lot of time by eliminating time-consuming research and quickly obtain usable results for well-founded decision-making. 4cost-cadcal provides you with comprehensive, up-to-date, country-specific benchmark data on materials, machines, tools and personnel, which we update regularly. All databases can be adapted and extended by you according to your company’s specific needs. In addition, you have the option of keeping all your projects up to date in a matter of seconds via a central database – for consistent data transparency throughout the entire team.

Formula wizard

4cost-cadcal has a powerful wizard for the mathematical calculation of cycle times, weights, volumes, surfaces and quantities. The software already comes with a standard repertoire of formulas, meaning that less technical expertise is required at this point. 4cost-cadcal also allows you to create and reuse your own formulas, for example to reflect in-house know-how. Thanks to the formula wizard, you achieve transparent quantity calculations in all your projects that are always comprehensible.

Transparent documentation

Bring transparency to your calculations with 4cost-cadcal by inserting notes and images or link to relevant documents (drawings, CAD models, quotations, specifications). In this way, calculation paths and premises can be documented transparently and comprehensibly for your team.

The possibility of setting colour markings and sorting according to them provides additional orientation in the calculation and makes it easier for you to keep track.

4cost-cadcal

Precise cost calculations directly on the 3D CAD model

What is 4cost-cadcal?

Areas of application

Efficient costing with high transparency

Automatic analysis of the 3D geometries

Smart 3D view

Work scheduling

Real-time reports in line with demand