Growing Need for Early Stage Manufacturing Simulation Guides aPriori 2019 R2

CONCORD, Mass. — (BUSINESS WIRE) — December 12, 2019 — aPriori, a leading provider of design for manufacturability and cost (DFM/DTC) solutions, today announces the release of aPriori 2019 R2. This new software version includes significant upgrades to the company’s flagship product, aPriori Professional, plus a host of enhancements to the Cost Insight family of cloud-based applications. aPriori’s unique, physics-based approach to simulating the manufacturing process for new product designs allows manufacturers to produce higher value products that capture greater market share.

Manufacturing simulation is increasingly becoming a “must have” requirement for designers and engineers. Gone are the days when the design team can exclusively focus on form, fit and function and ignore the cost to manufacture the products they design. In a recent market study released by the Madison Park Group (Engineering, Design, PLM & Simulation Software Market Update, Dec 2019), analysts noted that “Simulation is spreading across the entire design value chain, accelerating product ideation at the early design stages and reducing the need for costly physical testing & prototyping.”

aPriori Chief Product Officer, Julie Driscoll commented “Our customers are growing increasingly more sophisticated in their deployment of simulation software for product performance analysis in the early stages of design creation. Along with that, they are discovering the need to understand manufacturing cost as part of that analysis. Our recent announcement about our partnership with Autodesk and their Fusion 360 Generative Design platform underscores this growing trend towards quick, easy manufacturability analysis.”

Highlights of aPriori 2019 R2 Release

The new release of aPriori 2019 R2 continues to expand the company’s portfolio of out-of-the-box (OOTB) manufacturing simulation cost models with the introduction of a new composite cost model and a new aluminum extrusion cost model. Furthermore, this release includes a host of upgrades to our cloud applications Cost Insight Design and Cost Insight Report. aPriori 2019 R2 also provides a new approach for managing and updating Virtual Production Environment (VPE) configurations and upgrades more efficiently. And finally, this latest release also includes more than 250 individual product enhancements driven through collaboration with the company’s expanding global customer base.

New Cost Models Will Have Big Impact on Aerospace & Automotive Industries
Manufacturers across a variety of industry verticals – but most notably in Aerospace and Automotive – are exploring new materials and manufacturing processes to design products that weigh less, require less fuel, protect the environment and simultaneously offer improved performance characteristics.

With aPriori 2019 R2, the company is helping customers achieve these goals by expanding the suite of OOTB manufacturing cost models that enable quick and easy analysis of product designs from the earliest stages of the design lifecycle. New cost models available with this release include:

• Composites – a new composites cost model is available for estimating the manufacturing cost of parts made from continuous fiber-reinforced composite materials. The initial release is targeted at part types, material types, and layup processes common to the aerospace industry. The cost model supports both solid laminate parts and sandwich-structure parts containing honeycomb cores, made with thermoset resin materials (epoxy and phenolics).
  • This new cost model will provide customers with the capability to design and manufacture composite material products at optimal cost without compromising on safety or quality.
  • aPriori composite cost modeling will also enable early collaboration between design engineers and manufacturing engineers to identify manufacturability challenges and avoid product launch delays.
  • Watch how aPriori can generate a detailed cost estimate in seconds for a new composite design.
• Extrusions – a new extrusions cost model is now available for estimating the cost of parts made from custom aluminum extrusion profiles. It accounts for the cost of manufacturing the custom extrudates themselves, as well as the sawing, punching, and machining operations needed to remove material and any bending operations needed to produce the finished part.
  • This new cost model will help companies simulate tradeoffs between traditional manufacturing processes (such as sheetmetal forming/bending and/or machining) with more modern types of manufacturing techniques such as extrusions using aluminum material.

New Capabilities Added to Cost Insight Design
aPriori 2019 R2 continues the company’s commitment to grow the suite of capabilities available for manufacturing simulation and costing in the cloud. New capabilities have been added to the Cost Insight Design application that enable design engineers to cost complete assemblies, control costing inputs (e.g., material stock, threads and tolerances) and deliver expanded design for manufacturability and cost feedback. In addition, aPriori’s Cost Insight Report application for comprehensive management reporting & analysis is now available in the cloud.

Streamlined Upgrade Tools Enable Faster Adoption of New Capabilities
Virtual Production Environments (VPE) and other critical deployment management capabilities received a significant upgrade with aPriori 2019 R2. Some of the most important features now available include:

• Centralized wage grade table per VPE for ease of labor rate configuration and updates
• aPriori Professional Installation improvements to preserve user and deployment settings from release to release
• New Upgrade Comparison Reports in Cost Insight Reports to validate costing behavior during upgrade testing
• Faster VPE upgrades with the Cost Model Upgrade Tool

About aPriori
aPriori software and services generate hard-dollar product cost savings for discrete manufacturing and product innovation companies. Using aPriori’s real-time product cost assessments, employees in engineering, sourcing and manufacturing make more-informed decisions that drive costs out of products pre- and post-production. With aPriori, manufacturers launch products at cost targets, maximize savings in re-work projects and avoid overpaying for sourced parts. aPriori PCM solutions are now available in either on-premise or cloud deployment configurations. To learn more about aPriori and its product cost management solutions and services, visit www.apriori.com or call 1.978.371.2006.

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aPriori and aPriori Technologies are registered trademarks of aPriori Technologies Inc. All other trademarks, registered trademarks or service marks belong to their respective holders.

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Rick Burke
Vice President, Marketing
rburke@apriori.com
978.451.7675