SEER Year 1 Savings Over 1.5 Million Euros At Philips Medical
It is exciting to see how Philips medical quantified their first year savings by the application of SEER to reduce costs and ensure a fair price from their outsource partners.
SEER To Drive Cost Effective Design: “One of SEER-MFG’s strengths is its ability to influence design decisions, pointing the way to the simplest and most cost-effective solution”. This became evident to Pruijsen’s team during one of the pilot projects when they used SEER-MFG to calculate the cost of the parts for a new patient table. “We discovered that SEER-MFG is an interesting application because if you have a solution in mind it allows you to check on the cost and see alternative technologies,” he said. “A mechanical designer might not consider certain technologies because they are out of his experience. But if you can quickly calculate different scenarios, you can determine their cost impact and the amount of investment needed in areas like tooling.
SEER for Fair Pricing (Should Cost) In Outsource Situations: ” They eventually settled on a final price of 350 Euros-about one-third of the original quotation. “Without SEER-MFG, we might have been satisfied just reducing the price 10 percent to 900 Euros through negotiation. In the end the tolerances for this particular part were found to be much higher than necessary; the lower specifications allowed the supplier to significantly reduce his price. Of great impact and as a reflection back to our engineers is, that with SEER-MFG you directly can show the cost impact of the tolerances, technology and materials they choose, and then discuss what is good enough. This really drives costs down during the design stages.”
SEER Viable Parts Estimates In Minutes: “After we showed Galorath a drawing of a random part, 15 minutes later we had an estimate on the tooling cost. Four days later we got a quotation on the tool. The SEER estimate was within 2% of the quote.”
The full Philips case study may be found here.
Note SEER-MFG was formerly called SEER-DFM. It provides insight on how to design parts and systems for the most cost effective manufacturing.
New SEER Functionality, Like a Kid in a Candy Store
It is interesting as the company has grown over the years and as i have gotten further and further from day to day software requirements and design, to see some of the amazing functionality coming out of our development group. Sometimes it makes me feel like a kid in a candy store.
I was struck by the newest version of the metrics and benchmarking. A Histogram in addition to a scatter plot. This is so handy. And nearly a surprise to me. (I did know they were doing it but didn’t see it until beta time)
I see some of the global estimation abilities that have gone into SEER for Hardware Electronics and Systems. Very nice!!!. Makes trades even faster. And these I didnt know about until they were in the shipping product.
For SEER for IT, the newest scenario functionality is beautifully executed. Generate an entire IT system estimate by using a pattern and answering a few questions. I never saw this improved version until release.
And the Far out project… estimates unmanned spacecraft far out into the future. i just played with it a few weeks ago. It was released months ago. Very interesting.
Even some of our unreleased projects such as xippr (code name, ask and you can find out details) Amazing in its ability to ferret out project issues and potential problems.
And our top secret project… Amazing as I occasionally get glimpses into the builds.
As our processes continue to tighten (ISO 9001:2000 review coming up next month) I will be invited to attend more reviews… some of the fun surprises will disappear for me. I love seeing SEER evolve. Hats off to the development group.
SEER Estimate By Comparison Professional Released To All Users
The SEER Estimate By Comparison (formerly SEER-AccuScope) comes in two flavors, the core and the professional. The professional version allows estimation of anything, such as
- total system cost
- software size
- hardware weight
- system value
- server capacity
- best choice from a set of alternatives
This new feature incorporates sophisticated mathematics for uncertainty and estimation.
For the first year Galorath is providing the professional version to all SEER users. Beginning the second year the professional functionality will be available as an upgrade.
Galorath recommends using an industrial strength database for an enterprise but will allow Microsoft Access for simple desktop installations.
This feature began shipping with the release of SEER for Software 7.3, in October, 2008.
Medical Equipment Manufacturer Saves 500,000 Euros With SEER
A detailed case study is being prepared but I was so excited about this finding I thought I would publish it here first.
A major European Medical Equipment manufacturer identified a million Euros of potential savings with SEER. They have now been implementing those and report that that have a REALIZED SAVINGS of 500,000 Euros in the first year.
We hear about cost savings and project successes all the time. And it is wonderful that this organization will make this public. That is what SEER is about achievable plans and cost savings. Hats off to this organization and I look forward to the actual case study with attribution in the very near future.
I repeat my thought here that if the entire US industry used SEER it could create a meaningful change in the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as well.
Common Management Techniques Improve Productivity in Manufacturing
An article in the Wall Street Journal discussed studies measuring productivity of common management techniques such as setting targets, monitoring performance and lean manufacturing and were able to quantify the revenue and cost improvements associated with them.
It is good to see measurement and analysis playing such an important role in manufacturing operations.
the study found US factories are better managed than other countries but the gap is shrinking.
SEER for manufacturing’s job is to help set targets (should cost) measure performance and quantify improvements. The ROI on this work can be huge. ”Globally, the study found that a one-point increase in a factory’s average rating (on the one-to-five scale) translated to a 25% increase in labor productivity and a 65% increase in return on invested capital”
Bottoms Up Parametrics And Ever Increasing Details
Our SEER for Manufacturing (formally SEER-DFM) and now abbreviated SEER-MFG, uses what we call bottoms up parametrics.. Bottoms up parametrics differ from general parametric estimation modeling in a few respects:
- Bottoms Up Parametrics Don’t Necessarily Minimize the Number of Inputs
- Bottoms Up Parametrics ask for detailed levels that traditional parametric estimating would not.
I was briefed on a new tooling analysis method that actually allows the user to specify specific tools if they want to. Way more detail than a traditional parametric model. But exactly what the bottoms up people desire.
