How manufacturers can reduce costs using cloud-based cost-engineering platform

Phil Black - PII Editor 27/01/2014

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PA Consulting Group has launched a new venture which helps manufacturers save millions of euros. PA Perfect Cost Grid® is the first web-based benchmarking and cost-engineering platform, providing the comparative data and costing tools to develop competitively priced products.

The approach that underpins PA Perfect Cost Grid® has already helped Fiat save €100 million per annum, benchmarking its cars against competitors to reduce costs across components, supply chain and technical design. It has also enabled Magna Steyr to save double-digit millions of euros across one car’s product lifecycle, in terms of part and development costs.

While benchmarking and cost engineering capabilities can deliver huge benefits, only few manufacturers or major suppliers can commit the capacity and investment required to develop these techniques. Hence PA Perfect Cost Grid® provides four key products:

· cost and weight reduction with access to 1,000 ideas for reducing production time, product cost and weight

· calculation tools for product costs using hundreds of ready-to-use proven templates and databases for machine, material, process, overhead, logistics and country-specific costs

· model costing for explaining cost variances through benchmarking technical and commercial solutions against competitors

· cost engineering service for additional product cost savings through fine-tuning calculations as well as cost engineering support and training.

Leading the venture is Rainer Gross, Chief Executive Officer. Rainer is a PA manufacturing expert and manages PA Perfect Cost Grid® Ltd with Dr. Andreas Rennet, Chief Operating Officer, who joined from a cost engineering firm (a subsidiary of Management Engineers) where he was Managing Director. Andreas is an expert in material sciences, manufacturing technologies and innovation, product and process improvement up to benchmarking, product development and cost reduction.

Rainer Gross, CEO of PA Perfect Cost Grid® Ltd, says: “This technology gives purchasing, cost engineering and development teams timely online access to the comparative data and costing tools to develop competitively priced products, achieve savings in product costs and reduce investment.”

Andreas Rennet, Chief Operating Officer of PA Perfect Cost Grid® Ltd, adds: “We will extend the team for launching PA Perfect Cost Grid® in international markets as well as for providing leading edge thinking for next generation of manufacturing and product technologies.”

PA Perfect Cost Grid® is based in the UK, at PA’s London office, and also operates from PA’s Frankfurt office including a benchmarking factory in Stuttgart area.