In essence, a shop rate is the broad average of fixed costs over recoverable hours that are inflexible. They provide no means of analysis or adjustment.

• Flat shop rates bear no relationship to what’s actually happening in a business at any one time.  In fact, they have a tendency to "stagnate" when times are good, and be forgotten when work is scarce. There can be no adjustment or feedback on a “per part”, “per customer” or “per capacity” basis.  For example; if the job is lost because the price was high, where does the cost review begin to find out why?
   

• Shop rates are popular because they are quick and easy to work out. The alternative, doing it properly, can be time consuming and complicated.  QuoteCam allows the estimator to prepare a “qualified quote” in the same time it takes to do it "incorrectly" using the old method.
   

• With QuoteCam, each work center cost is determined individually.  Answering a few basic questions enables the overhead burden rate to be calculated.  When completed, the combined effect is an accurate and flexible costing model that can be fine tuned for every quote.
  

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Overhead / Burden Costs

Large companies know their overhead burden rates and factor those costs into their quotes. 

Overhead costs are real and must be taken into account but many small companies guess or ignore burden rates because they find these costs difficult to calculate. 

QuoteCam includes a Burden Rate Calculator to determine costs incidental to the business. The system audits the revenue potential of each job. It then factors the calculation into the quote to recoup these costs.  Merely adding a profit margin to an artificially low cost is choosing to ignore the burden rates.  Any theoretical profit must be used to pay overhead.  What remains is the actual profit. 

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The Hourly Rate

A “Work Center” is any process adding value to the parts being manufactured.  

Often the term "work center" refers to a machine tool but it can be applied to any process.

QuoteCam addresses all types of work centers. These may include skilled & unskilled, manual tasks, inspection, and document checks.

With regard to the machine tool;

• What is the correct hourly rate to charge? 

• What is the real cost of machine ownership? 

In most cases shop owners take educated guesses at their rates. Today's global marketplace is extremely price sensitive and no place to guess.

QuoteCam "cost considers" every aspect of a machine tool; Lease payments, Interest, Depreciation, Future value, and Maintenance expenses.  

One easy to use calculator determines the exact cost of ownership and how it relates in an hourly rate.

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Materials Library

QuoteCam ships with a large selection of common materials arranged in groups.

Each material group has detailed information associated including cutting feeds / speeds data which is easily edited and updated by the user.

Adding new material is done in seconds by adding to an existing group.  The correct speeds & feeds information is inherited immediately.

Depending on your preferences, material may need to be priced as a separate item from the machining operations. QuoteCam has the ability to add a separate profit mark up using the Batch Analyzer.

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Estimating Cycle Times / Turning

The turning estimator is designed to simulate
all common machining process performed on
a Lathe. Use of the machining simulators is optional. 

If confident with your own estimating abilities simply type in your own estimated time.  If
you need to be more precise then the Turning Estimator will accurately calculate the total cycle time for each operation. 

All the basic information such as material, cutting feeds & speeds etc are taken from
the main quote so the user need only specify diameters and lengths of the journals and other dimensional information regarding the various
features such as grooves, tapers and
faces etc.

All the diameters on a shaft can be estimated quickly on one form by entering diameters and lengths. The system calculates the total time spent roughing and finishing and will allow for tool change times.

QuoteCam is shipped with a database of threads for fast, easy times for screw cutting.

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Estimating Cycle Times / Milling

Milling has a multitude of operations and methods.  QuoteCam provides a non-complicated approach enabling estimators and shop owners to produce a realistic cycle time estimates.

Common operations such as facing take the effective cutting diameter of the cutter into consideration as well as the percentage overlap during the estimate process.

Pocket machining includes time for roughing, finishing and different sized cutters for each stage.

Keyways, slots, circular roughing and step milling are easily managed.

All basic information regarding material, cutting feeds & speeds, and etc. are taken from the main quote so the estimator need only specify dimensional information for various operations.

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Estimating Cycle Times / Hole Machining

Drilling operations are handled by the Hole Machining Calculator. Basic data relating to material and cutting speeds are taken from the main quote so only dimensional data need be entered.

QuoteCam provides a Threads database that will provide drilling diameter and thread pitch (or threads per inch) information. Counter bores and spot faces may also be included.

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Thread Data

QuoteCam includes an extensive database of
metric and imperial threads data establishing
fast, easy production times for screw cutting.

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Accurate Batch Cost and Profit Analysis

QuoteCam shows exactly what the true manufacturing costs are but, what about the selling price?

QuoteCam has a unique analyzer that graphically displays the manufacturing cost of each part in the batch.  Instantly calculate a selling price based on margin, mark-up or other "what if" scenarios.

The analyzer digests changes in a customer order such as batch size. When asked to provide a quote for 30 which is then changed to 20; instant analysis answers the question regarding keeping the same price or making an adjustment thru a margin adjustment.  Questions that could take hours to work out on paper or with a spreadsheet are instantly attainable with QuoteCam.  QuoteCam will even back calculate your profit margins if you need to match or undercut a competitive quote by simply typing in your competitors selling price.

The Analyzer also provides a cost breakdown in the form of an easy to read pie chart.   See which element of the manufacturing area has the most significant impact.

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Quality Documents and Port-Ability

QuoteCam outputs top quality documents for customer presentation. Documents can be printed and saved in popular formats:  Portable Document Format (.PDF), exported to existing corporate letterheads, Microsoft Word (2003 or higher) templates, or output to a .CSV file to be imported into Microsoft Excel or as a data source for any other application that read comma delimited files.

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Scrap Allowance

A scrapped part allowance can now be built into a quote. By entering a scrap quantity QuoteCam will internally increase the batch size accordingly thereby building the cost of manufacture into the quote without increasing the reported batch size.
The scrap quantity may also be modified
in the sales price analyzer.

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Consumable Tooling Purchase

This new function allows for the purchase of consumable items (such as carbide inserts) based on the batch size.  As you can see, we are able to specify the cost of the item and the expected rate of consumption during the machining process for instance in the example above we expect to use 1 insert for every 12 parts we make. Also note that the
E-Quote system has been expanded to
include this type of purchase.

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Tabbed Interface

It’s now easier than ever to keep “tabs” on your searches and open dialogues.

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