4cost-aces
4cost-aces

4cost-aces

Calculate manufacturing costs reliably at an early stage

What is 4cost-aces?

The costing software 4cost-aces enables you to efficiently calculate manufacturing and production costs at an early stage. With 4cost-aces, you can create reliable and time-saving cost calculations for electronic and mechanical components/assemblies as well as for entire systems.

The innovative parametric cost model of 4cost-aces delivers sound results with just a few inputs and ensures maximum cost transparency. For fast and safe decision-making.

Areas of application

  • Manufacturing costs

  • Production costs

  • Value analysis

  • Risk analysis

  • Quotation costing

  • Target costing

  • Should cost analysis, purchase price analysis

4cost White paper: Parametric cost estimation

Free white paper

Estimate and optimise project and product costs validly at an early stage

In this white paper you will learn:

  • How to achieve maximum transparency in the cost structure of your projects and products

  • How to identify cost drivers early on and realise optimisation potential

  • The advantages of the parametric approach over conventional costing methods

Reliable cost calculations early on

Manufacturing companies that want to remain competitive in the long term need detailed insight into the cost structure of their products as early as possible.

4cost-aces has been specially developed to deliver meaningful analyses quickly and with little input, enabling you to identify potential savings and cost drivers at an early stage.

4cost-aces offers a standardised method for determining costs, which you can use to quickly calculate each product component based on the same five inputs. This saves a lot of time and streamlines your information gathering processes.

AI Depending on the inputs, 4cost-aces automatically adjusts the weighting of the parameters and the corresponding cost functions. This guarantees the perfect interaction of the parameters in a wide variety of industries, technologies and applications.

Thanks to the universal cost functions of 4cost-aces, there is no need to initialise the software beforehand. You can start your first cost calculation immediately after installation.

Get usable results quickly without time-consuming research and modelling in advance. 4cost-aces provides you with a wide range of data on material prices and processing factors. The software also includes numerous pre-modelling options for general and specific components/assemblies.

All supplied databases are regularly updated by 4cost, but can also be adapted to specific company requirements.

The intuitive modular system of 4cost-aces enables you to quickly create comprehensible, flexible project and product structures. The level of detail can be individually adapted to your needs.

You can save all the structures you have created in a central database and reuse them in other projects at any time. This allows you to easily share your expertise with other colleagues and simplifies collaboration.

Focus on what matters most when calculating your costs. 4cost-aces takes care of the rest. For example, the costs for assembly, integration and testing are calculated automatically, so you don’t need to have detailed information or expert knowledge in this area.

If necessary, the integration and testing costs can be edited and calibrated using technology-dependent wizards.

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Experience 4cost-aces live

We would be happy to demonstrate the capabilities of our costing software 4cost-aces to you in person.

Request a no-obligation online product demonstration now. Our sales team will contact you shortly.

Our clients report on their success with 4cost

Simulate and analyse with just a few clicks

Securing competitive advantages and identifying growth opportunities early on as a company in a global environment requires comprehensive analyses of the profitability of products and projects.

4cost-aces offers a wide range of options for mapping different scenarios in the shortest possible time and evaluating their profitability. All results are processed by the software as required for management and other relevant stakeholders and made available for informed decision-making.

4cost-aces has a powerful report generator that automatically compiles the most important information for you in a clear format. All generated reports can be exported as PDF files. This provides you with meaningful results that management can use to quickly derive measures, identify opportunities and minimise risks.

4cost-aces includes numerous reporting templates, such as ABC analysis for identifying cost drivers. All templates can be adapted to your company’s specific needs if required. Additional customised reports are available on request.

4cost-aces enables you to perform transparent variant analyses that support you in product and process optimisation, reveal opportunities and risks, and form a secure basis for business case decisions, make-or-buy decisions, bid/no-bid decisions, and more.

4cost-aces includes a comprehensive ‘search, replace & calculate’ function that allows you to quickly make any changes to your project in order to examine their impact on the calculation. The cost scenarios generated in this way are compared separately from each other and can be clearly compared and evaluated at a glance using the report function.

Achieve optimum results in your manufacturing processes by mapping and comparing the cost implications of different levels of automation and process quality. This will make your calculations more transparent and create a solid basis for both external negotiations and internal coordination.

The effects of different purchase quantities and varying degrees of automation (batch sizes, quantity effects, manufacturing overheads) can also be fully mapped in 4cost-aces.

AI ‘How much can we save by setting a coarser tolerance class?’ Let the 4cost-aces IndexM Assistant automatically answer your value analysis questions by varying all inputs. The selection of individual optimisation parameters can be customised and saved as a template.

With 4cost-aces, you can take into account the number of production lines, their utilisation and the country of manufacture in the form of individually adjustable variables in your cost calculations.

With just a few clicks, you can transfer projects modelled in 4cost-aces to another country or currency area. The software then determines the location-specific costs using parity and productivity factors. Location scenarios can thus be quickly modelled, comprehensively calculated and transparently compared.

The various location data is maintained twice a year by 4cost. Among other things, 4cost-aces uses data from the Federal Statistical Office in Wiesbaden as a basis.

To ensure consistent planning reliability even when raw material prices fluctuate, 4cost-aces features a central material manager. This allows you to customise material prices and properties and automatically update them in all your existing projects.

4cost-aces helps you to validate supplier purchase prices in a transparent manner by examining purchased parts for their price based on a few parameters. The results generated serve as a basis for argumentation in negotiations with suppliers for a targeted reduction in purchase prices.

Thanks to the seamless integration of our software solutions, you can apply the overhead costs calculated in 4cost-scenarioanalyser directly to the cost calculations created in 4cost-aces. This ensures transparent quotation creation on the sales side and provides a solid basis for negotiations with suppliers.

Error reduction through guided inputs

Complex cost calculations generate a wealth of information over time, which must be processed correctly.

4cost-aces supports you with intelligent wizards for data entry and checks the data for plausibility using various mechanisms. This minimises errors from the outset and greatly reduces your workload.

Modelling in 4cost-aces is carried out using technology-specific inputs. This means that information is always requested in line with the manufacturing process. Data is therefore entered in the individual technical environment, which increases understanding and ensures the traceability of the calculated values.

4cost-aces enables you to determine machining rates and specific raw and finished part weights based on geometry information and material. As part of cost optimisation during development, high machining rates can be counteracted in good time. To do this, you adjust the underlying raw part geometries and processes in the software and view the effects. By comparing variants, you can find the best possible solution for reducing material costs.

AI 4cost-aces automatically checks for inconsistent entries in projects so that you can correct them specifically. This saves you a lot of time during the final check of the cost calculation.

4cost-aces uses stochastic methods (Monte Carlo simulation) to evaluate uncertainties in the assumptions made in your calculation. The resulting improvement in calculation quality ensures a risk-minimised basis for decision-making.

For greater traceability in your costing projects, 4cost-aces offers the option of integrating and displaying PDF documents directly in the project. This means you have all your drawings, notes, data sheets, etc. available on the spot at all times.

Flexible data exchange across all systems

Companies typically use numerous software systems that provide information in different file formats.

4cost-aces supports data exchange with all common and well-known systems. The ability to switch flexibly between top-down and bottom-up calculation approaches is unique worldwide.

All generated data can be transferred back and forth between 4cost-aces and 4cost-structure using drag & drop. Depending on the project status, you can thus fully exploit the advantages of the respective costing model.

This is particularly beneficial for calculations during development, as it combines early phases with little information and late phases with a high level of information. For a consistent cost analysis without any loss of information across all project phases.

AI With 4cost-aces, you can import product structures and key parameters from the STEP files in your CAD application without any detours. The structures are automatically transferred by the software and filled with the corresponding data. This allows you to derive costs directly from the product design.

4cost-aces allows you to import existing product structures and associated parameters, e.g. from Excel files. Templates are available to ensure the smooth import of all data.

All data and results generated in 4cost-aces can be exported as Excel files and thus made available for further processing in other software applications.