4cost solutions for cost and value engineering

Controlling product costs from the first day on

Starting with an idea into the development phase of a product. This timeframe (development schedule) holds the biggest potential for comprehensive cost optimisation. The 4cost software solutions help you to uncover optimisation potentials very early in the schedule. Lay the foundation for the production of profitable products.

When using the 4cost costing software, you can map detailed cost structures according to your needs. Analyse the products’ costs across all phases of the life cycle.

Gain enhanced cost transparency and an increased understanding of cost behaviour.

4cost costing software makes your daily work easier and enables you to:

Do valid cost forecasts with ease in early phases, when often little information is available
Identify cost drivers with precision
Create cost estimates in unprecedented speed and formally unknown accuracy

Identify possible cost reduction to optimise existing products and new developments (GAP analyses)
Find the best ratio between cost benefits of materials, manufacturing processes, countries etc. when applying a wide range of possible manufacturing scenarios

Calculate with 4cost

For cost and value engineering tasks 4cost provides the costing tools needed at any time and situation. Is little information available 4cost-aces is the tool to use. 4cost-structure and 4cost-cadcal help you creating detailed bottom-up calculations. Cost forecasts with 4cost-prediction and overhead cost analyses with 4cost-scenarioanalyser are also part of our tailored software solutions.

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Substantial savings in effort and time

Using the standardised costing methods of the 4cost software tools in cost and value management, a company-wide costing standard is ensured. Establish a common understanding of costs across departments. This guarantees you better cooperation, shorter coordination processes and knowledge across all product phases.

Intelligent input wizards, central databases and comprehensive plausibility checks help and support you in calculating costs. Conventional costing methods are very time consuming. Projects are up to 80 % faster with the use of 4cost’s software applications. This will also significantly reduce errors in your calculations

Costing tools from 4cost support you in the following areas:

Value analyses
Design-to-cost, built-to-spec, built-to-print
Purchase price analysis, should costing (reasonable costing)
Target costing
Development costs, prototype costs, manufacturing costs, production costs, software development costs
Benchmark the cost range

Lifecycle costs, total cost of ownership
Overhead costing at any level
Preliminary costing (to get the right costing idea)
Preparation of quotations
Linear performance pricing, non-linear performance pricing
Predictive costing and price forecasts

Our international customers 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