Cost Report Rules

[Brent Howard]

I have a few questions regarding the cost report and was wondering if anyone can answer them? I e-mailed Kathleen that is supposed to answer questions regaring the rules, but no response in a week. She is probably on vacation, but i would like to get started right away.

1) What is expected to be charged for set-up of machined items? Things like clamping the work piece in a vice or chuck, tool changes, edge finding? Or are we to assume that the tooling and work piece are already in place and jigged so set-up time would be minimal? Are we only supposed to pay for the actual time cutting or time needed to set-up the work piece.

2) When will the 2004 rules be published and the items given for the event day cost presentation?

3) We plan to run the stock ECU with a piggy back dyno-jet power commander for the fuel map. Do we need to cost both the stock ECU and the power commander, or does the stock ECU come with the engine as it is needed to make it run. The rules state that the engine comes with everything needed to run, however some parts must be costed separately. On a related topic, if we do have to cost both how can a team running a $10000 CDN Motec system remain competitive in the cost event?

Thanks for any clarifications you can give.

Brent Howard

www.ucalgary.ca/fsae (http://www.ucalgary.ca/fsae)

[Brent Howard]

I have a few questions regarding the cost report and was wondering if anyone can answer them? I e-mailed Kathleen that is supposed to answer questions regaring the rules, but no response in a week. She is probably on vacation, but i would like to get started right away.

1) What is expected to be charged for set-up of machined items? Things like clamping the work piece in a vice or chuck, tool changes, edge finding? Or are we to assume that the tooling and work piece are already in place and jigged so set-up time would be minimal? Are we only supposed to pay for the actual time cutting or time needed to set-up the work piece.

2) When will the 2004 rules be published and the items given for the event day cost presentation?

3) We plan to run the stock ECU with a piggy back dyno-jet power commander for the fuel map. Do we need to cost both the stock ECU and the power commander, or does the stock ECU come with the engine as it is needed to make it run. The rules state that the engine comes with everything needed to run, however some parts must be costed separately. On a related topic, if we do have to cost both how can a team running a $10000 CDN Motec system remain competitive in the cost event?

Thanks for any clarifications you can give.

Brent Howard

www.ucalgary.ca/fsae (http://www.ucalgary.ca/fsae)

[Jackson]

Never done a formula cost report, only a Baja one (should be about the same), but as for the machining A-La Point 1:

In a CNC mill, you would set up a set of soft jaws that contoured your specific part and or use a locating pin so it is aligned the same each time. A fixture offset (usually called in the program as an "E" number) would be called in your program that was the same for all 1000 parts to be made - or 2000, or... That shouldn't change assuming you set the jig up right the first time. So essentially you are paying a machinist to be George Jetson (he has the job pushing the button all day-- don't know if that show was popular up north). The time spent would be (number of parts)*(machining time per part)+(perhaps 4 hours set up time--really easy to do)=time spent machining each part.

Keep in mind that the machines that you manufacture the part with may be MUCH faster than the prototype parts. common high speed CNC machinery runs the spindle at 15,000RPM or higher with rapid feedrates of up to 1000 in/min. Think DAMN fast! Anyway, we are getting to nitpickyness here, but you get the point.

Brian
WAZZU (Washington State U) Formula

[Brent Howard]

Did you say you charged 4 hours set-up time per part in baja? At $35 US/hour per hour of labour that is $140 US/part.

As far as CNC parts I have been in the habit of charging the time to put the workpiece in and the run time for the program. I am more interested in what teams charge for things such as edge finding, setting a part up on parallel bars, etc.... I'm not sure if we are charing too much or too little in this area.

Brent

www.ucalgary.ca/fsae (http://www.ucalgary.ca/fsae)

[Jackson]

Well, in baja labor is $8/hour for the cost report! Can you say made in Malaysia/Taiwan/WeDontCareAsLongAsItsCheapLand?

Are you actually planning on manually machining parts? I can't imagine how that would be cost beneficial. That is the reason that CNC machinery was invented in the first place (I can just see the punch tape flying by... %M30...)

What I was saying is that finding the fixture offset with respect to the part in the CNC machine involves using the centerfinder, with parallels etc. You only need to do this once for each part run that gets manufactured. It doesn't take too long. How long does it take you to find a center? Divide that by two for someone that does it everyday and there you have it-- keep in mind that most modern CNC machines calculate the center for you after you have located the edges and automatically store the value as a fixture offset. I can't imagine that it will be a significant part of the machining cost.

The machine that it would be produced on would most likely have a tool changer-- unless you plan on manufacturing every part theoretically "in house", but everything in the auto industry is outsourced to manufacturing contractors.

I didn't mean 4 hours per part-- I meant 4 hours per part RUN ie, you are making 1000 formula cars, so we need to set up the mill once then run 1000 pieces through it. so even if it did take a rediculous 4 hour amount of time to set up the first time it would only be $0.14 US per part at $35/hour. Not a whole hell of a lot!

I wouldn't worry about it. It is a nice detail to see though, but I am by no means a cost judge. However we have gotten in the mid 90's the last two years on our cost report at Baja West. (I'm sure we probably won't do that well for our first formula comp!)

Best of luck Brent

Brian
Wazzu Formula

[D Mack - CMT]

hmm, id like to know the answer to that as well, Brent.

[Brent Howard]

Brian,

The main disadvantage of using CNC equipment in the cost report is that CNC time is costed at $75 US/hour and manual machining is only $35/hour. As well many parts are simply not worth the coding time to us, as our machinists are busy enough and it's much better to get team members to run the manual machine. Anyway, back to the original questions...anyone other than brian have an opinion?

Brent

www.ucalgary.ca/fsae (http://www.ucalgary.ca/fsae)

[Travis Garrison]

I don't think I can help on the second two questions, but I'm pretty sure Brian is on the right track...

I'm fairly certian that soft jaws, jigs, etc.. aren't accounted for in the cost report, which means that you can say you used soft jaws on every part...meaning the setup time is almost non existant....I don't believe you have to cost out programing time either...I don't believe we ever have. Really it wouldn't be fair to cost programing times, since schools use different programs, or maybe none at all to code their cnc parts and if you were actually going to produce a car you wouldn't be screwing around with cheap programs or hand coding.

What we have found is that for most parts cnc works out to be much cheaper...a part that might take hours in setup on a manual machine might take only minutes in a good cnc mill with a set of softjaws.

Travis Garrison
WWU FSAE

[Charlie]

In my opinion, the coding times and setup are built into the hourly rate of the CNC or hand milling operation.

-Charlie Ping
Auburn University FSAE (http://eng.auburn.edu/organizations/SAE/AUFSAE)
5th Overall Detroit 2003
? Overall Aussie 2003. http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

[Brent Howard]

That sounds about right Charlie. I think you migth be right that they include set-up time in the costed hourly rate. Basically, you are saying that the 35 cents/hole rate includes setting up the workpiece to drill the hole right? So I wouldn't charge say 5 minutes time to get the tool, find the edge, zero the axis, and then drill the hole.....just one hole = 0.35.

I like that way much better anyway..saves me time and the team "money".

Brent

www.ucalgary.ca/fsae (http://www.ucalgary.ca/fsae)

[Jackson]

Brent;

Wow, I just looked at the formula rules and they are quite specific! $70/hour seems kinda steep for just the CNC machine time-- Does that include the labor required to run the machine? (not that there is too much labor usually)

I wish the minibaja competition was that organized!

Brian

[Brent Howard]

Brian,

I'm quite sure that the $70/hour for CNC does include all assosiated labour. These prices per hour cover everything the shop needs, including capital expenditures, heat, lighting, machinists, coffee for the coffee maker, etc.... The extra money for the CNC time I think is just to cover extra capital expenditure and the cost of more experianced machinists (normally more senior guys).

www.ucalgary.ca/fsae (http://www.ucalgary.ca/fsae)

[Frank "Ruska"]

We understand the rules like this way:
0,35 $ per hole including all work you need to drill this hole including worktime, worker, machine setup and so on.

You have "only" count together the assembley time to bring all parts to a car together!

I think don´t think to complicate, it is not that complicate. If it dont stand in the rules it is up to you.

We won the cost report twice in 4 years, 2 times second and ones third in 6 events! So i think we don´t make to much mistakes!

Frank