Concord, Mass.—June 27, 2014—aPriori, a provider of enterprise product cost management software solutions, announced the general availability of Cost Insight, a new business intelligence capability that delivers timely and actionable product cost and profitability data to engineering, manufacturing, and sourcing managers and executives. Cost Insight provides aPriori users with intuitive, self-service access to product cost information to maximize visibility into the performance of their cost management initiatives, and enable real-time decisions based on reliable and detailed product cost data.
“Advanced reporting and analytics is becoming a critical component of effective product cost management,” said Julie Driscoll, vice president of product management and strategic marketing at aPriori. “It increases the efficiency of your efforts by enhancing business insight and enabling more informed cost decision-making at all levels of the manufacturing organization. Cost Insight unlocks cost-driver data and presents it to users at all levels in an actionable form, enabling a more strategic view of product profitability and higher levels of product cost savings.”
The aPriori platform is architected to provide real-time cost information on parts and complete products. The software leverages computer-aided design (CAD) and intelligent cost models to quickly determine feasible manufacturing methods and product costs, while generating detailed manufacturing analysis and cost estimates that quantify the impact of changes to product design, materials, manufacturing processes, volumes and location in real time. aPriori also enables manufacturers to leverage product cost data hosted in other enterprise applications to communicate product cost information between all functional organizations involved in product definition and delivery. This includes the import of complex engineering bills of materials (BOMs) from enterprise resource planning (ERP), project lifecycle management (PLM) or other enterprise applications.
With Cost Insight, aPriori extends the platform with enterprise-quality business intelligence capabilities that provide intuitive and easy-to-use reporting of cost driver data. Cost Insight delivers role-based insights for design, engineering, manufacturing, value engineering, and sourcing executives and managers. The system is web-enabled for anytime, anywhere access including mobile.
Key features include:
- A reporting data mart with automated/scheduled export of data from the aPriori product cost management platform.
- Export, transform, and load (ETL) data integration for connecting aPriori to other enterprise systems and applications.
- A set of business intelligence (BI) tools, including ad hoc reporting, dashboard creation and a production report authoring tool.
- Out-of-the-box reports and dashboards to support key cost management processes, such as outlier analysis and product cost tracking.
Specific Reporting Capabilities
aPriori Cost Insight provides intuitive, role-based reporting of product cost data at the component (rollup, assembly and part) and process/operation level. Specific reports include:
- Production reports built using the Cost Insight professional report authoring tool and designed to assist end users in tasks related to their specific product cost management responsibilities.
- Ad hoc reports built by the end-user with Cost Insight’s online templates, and designed for on-demand reporting by business professionals who want to enhance their visibility into product cost and share that knowledge with other stakeholders.
- Dashboard reports built using the Cost Insight professional report authoring tool, and in simple cases, the ad hoc tool. The dashboards are designed to support daily monitoring of product cost management activities.
