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NW MN | Cost is a vague word.
Cost to mfg, cost associated with warranty repairs, retail price/dealer price (everyone loves margins)
Cost heavily goes into volumes one can generate.
Cost is associated with how many prototypes you get to build.
Cost is associated with field testing or analyzing in the computer (Finite Element Analysis, multi-body dynamics, etc) for computer aided engineering is not cheap either. One does need correlation to help reduce time to market. I do recall an account manager at Ansys (FEA software etc) saying that John Deere has some serious internal coding/programs that plug-in for welded structure analysis.
business cases set targets and engineers are tasked with meeting those goals that are set. Engineering might give guidelines as to the expected cost, and management/accounting comes back with their estimate at 10% or more reduction from the engineering guidance. Engineers are not typically in control of the company. | |
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Good Bye AgTalk
