The Client
Capiq Engineering, founded in 1991, is a world-class engineering organization located in Gujarat, India. The company is primarily engaged in custom manufacturing of precision machined components and assemblies. The basic strength of Capiq is in comprehensive capabilities in the field of manufacturing, design recommendation for manufacturability, Quality control and business management.
The organization manufactures parts that typically have tolerances down to 0.001 to 0.015 mm range. They are made from Hardened OHNS (W), Aluminum alloys, EN1A leaded steel, A2 Tool Steel, various grades of SS, exotic alloys, UHMW plastic, etc. The quantities are from 500 to 20,000 pieces a month. These parts are required for hydraulic/pneumatic cylinder assemblies, assemblies of high precision machines for Semiconductor industry, assemblies for Medical equipment, implants, Robotics, winding fixtures for voice coils of disc drives, etc.
The Problem
While using detailed Excel sheets for calculating and machining and labor times, Capiq experienced difficulty in training new employees in using the Excel program. This led to issues in keeping up with inquiries, resulting in lost business. These problems affected their relationships with customers, citing that speed, not accuracy, was the biggest setback with their Excel system.
How Costimator Helped
Capiq found that with Costimator it was very easy to train new estimators, which immediately eliminated the issues they had keeping up with customers RFQ's. According to Ketan Chemburkar, Capiq's VP of Marketing,
I have an employee who was in our HR department earlier, and he is coming up with very accurate quotes using Costimator. A second estimator, who used to be a textile engineer, is now doing a wonderful job of estimating for assemblies that have more than 200 parts.
Costimator also enables Capiq to set up "What If" scenarios, which allows them to analyze the cost effect of manufacturing various batch sizes and utilizing different equipment and process steps.
Chemburker adds, "Costimator enables the estimators to effectively collaborate when developing an estimate, allows management to quickly review the estimates, and ultimately, has made our estimating team more productive".
Costimator increases overall productivity, estimating speed, accuracy and consistency.
Estimating Software
