Semi-automated process planning and cost estimation of turned components based on CATIA V5 Machining

To be more competitive in the market, many companies are trying to speed up the quotation process and quote more attractive prices. Therefore, they have identified a need for support in the quotation process in order to reduce the quotation lead-time and ensure a higher level of accuracy in the cost estimations. The Quotation Calculator, an application program, has been developed as part of the degree thesis which was carried out at AB Norrahammars Mekaniska Verkstad, NMW 2006/07. This Quotation Calculator can be operated to calculate the material and manufacturing costs of a new product. NMW has recently acquired licenses for CATIA V5, Dassault Systems, for the purpose of making process planning and NC-programming more efficient. NMW wants to generate the data needed from the machining module for the cost calculations. Hence this project was initiated in order to extract data from CATIA V5 for further use in Quotation Calculator or other computer system in NMW. This work has resulted in a system developed with a common hosted programming language to extract and transfer information. The system retrieves model geometry from CAD and information on process planning from CAM, then matches the information in the application for the purpose of cost estimation. The system once developed, is supposed to be used for every new product. For this approach, the relationship of the data from CATIA V5 and the Quotation Calculator has been analyzed. Within this thesis, the focus is on production cost estimation. The method used here is programming in Visual Basic Editor to extract information from the machining module in CATIA V5 and then import them to Microsoft Excel. With standard operations, tables of data and several inputs, the cost calculation and hence the quotation process can be automatically implemented. This work has been generated with the Quotation Calculator. With the correct input data to process planning and this new quotation system, the machining time and the costs can be estimated more accurately and easier. The time and cost information is made available for decision making. As a result, the lead time for the quotation process will be shortened and a relatively more attractive price can be quoted to the customers