cost stuff again

[1975BMW2002]

I know that the cost report has been beat to death on this forum, but I have an actual question about it, instead of just bashing it.(Okay, maybe I'll bash it a little bit later.)

my question:
Is "Tube end preparation for welding" as listed int eh rules as a service that costs $0.75, grinding or cutting the tube to match, or is it just taking a wire brush to it? I'd like to believe it is the first, but it sounds too good(cheap) to be true. How do others cost this out? honestly...

Okay-- how am i supposed to fit all of my suspension stuff into ten pages. i made just about everything, and now it just won't fit.
arggghhhh.

Bill

[Vector006]

We had the same question, this is what they wrote us:

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I am going to try to answer both of your questions in the same answer. In the operations cost table, "Saw or tubing"� cuts are priced by the inch. If you cut across a 1"� pipe, the cut is an inch long. Unless you are cutting a very large piece of pipe circumferentially (you are most likely not doing this), you can price tube cuts based on the tube diameter.

Tube end prep is cleanup of the end of the tube prior to welding. This generally is a deburring and cleaning. This is not notching/"�fish mouthing"�/coping the tube. Those operations are cuts.

Thus, if you first rough cut all of your tubes, then finish cut them to fit, then end prep them, your cost will be $0.40 + $0.40 + $0.75 = $1.55 per tube end.

I hope this helps, if you have more questions, please ask.

Dan Cullen
FSAE Consortium

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-jer

[1975BMW2002]

Thank you vector006, this method is much cheaper than the method that i had originaly used. I was pricing it out in labor hours. Each tube was costing around 20 bucks. this is about 1/7th the cost. very cool. this cost report method does not seem the least bit realistic though. it's almost as if it is cheap to manufacture stuff if you stick to basic commmands like cut and drill. However, once you go to fillet and grind, it gets really expensive since these are costed as labor at 35 bucks an hour. and when was the last time you paid 75 cents a pound for aluminum? I feel lucky to get it at 3 times that. ironically, buying stuff puts you at paying retail for one part. building 1000 cars would not involve any retail pricing unless the sourcing department sucked.

then again, making it more realistic would make it even harder. So, i think we should say to hell with reality. every part costs one dollar, and every assembly step costs two dollars. voila. meaningless pricing. kind of like we have it now, just easier.

just my current venting after spending 14 hours of my spring break working on this, and not being nearly done.

Bill

[Denny Trimble]

So, how many teams are recruiting business or Industrial Engineering students for this for next year? We gave up on having ME's do this a while ago.

[Charlie]

Notching tubes is not labor intensive in a production environment. You can do a tube end in about 20 seconds with the proper jig. Our 4130 sponsor Maule Air builds aircraft from 4130 and I've seen how they do it.

Remember the cost report is production-style build, not prototype.

No Denny, we can't seem to build any interest with the business group.

[James Waltman]

Yeah, 75 cents a pound makes our 7000 series uprights ridiculously inexpensive.

I think that last year I put in about 130 hours of my spring break for the cost report. We probably put over 250 total man hours into the report last year. I spent 30 hours straight working on it with Travis and Mike Waggoner right at the end. I think that we did a decent job with it but I don't know for sure because we withdrew from competition in late April and they wouldn't give us any feedback. This year I am revising the same report to reflect changes since last year (way too many). I will probably put in about 30 or 40 more hours this year.

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR> Okay-- how am i supposed to fit all of my suspension stuff into ten pages. i made just about everything, and now it just won't fit.
arggghhhh. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

We make a lot of our own stuff and that kills us for page length and time spent on the report. For example our shocks take up 4 pages and took a very long time to put in the report.
2 pages for our brake calipers
4 pages for our steering rack
1 page for our CV joints
These things would all be one line if we purchased them and take 5 minutes each to put in the report instead of 5 hours each. There is a definite time advantage for teams that purchase these items and there is no chance for error. The disadvantage is that you have to list retail cost. Our costs are always significantly lower.

Denny,
How do you guys recruit business majors? We tried talking to the chair of the Business Dept about getting some of their students involved and that didn't get us anywhere. We also went to our school's accounting club and tried to recruit some of them. We found out that the club is just for networking and they don't actually do anything. It turns out that accounting majors don't enjoy doing accounting in their free time. (I suspect that they don't enjoy it when they are getting paid either.)

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR> 4.3.1 The Concept
The objective of the Cost and Manufacturing Event is twofold:
1. To teach the participants that cost and a budget are significant factors
that must be taken into account in any engineering exercise. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I don't see how you can build a car without learning this lesson. We don't need to melt our brains on the report to back it up.

[James Waltman]

I just remembered something that we thought of last year that would make the cost report easy.
(Please read above about 30 hours straight on the cost report and melted brains.)

We were getting frustrated that we were spending so much time on the cost report for things that we chose to make rather than purchase.

I decided that I should start up a company. My company would sell only one product: Viking 35. Viking 35 is our car.

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR> 4.3.4.3 Receipts
(D) If the actual receipt for a part is not available, a photocopy of a page from a catalogue of the part in question will be acceptable. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

The team could photocopy a page from my catalog (there would only be one page in my catalog). The retail cost of Viking 35 in my catalog would be $8,000 US. This photocopy of the catalog page would go in the standard three ring binder and all the sections of the cost report would all say: "Please see attached receipt"�. Since the complete car could be purchased (not modified or fabricated) the cost report would be quite simple.

If anyone is interested I suppose my company could expand its product line and add another page to the catalog. Denny, how about 2004 University of Washington FSAE car for $8,001?

I think I am going crazy working on this report.

[Denny Trimble]

Sold! I'll take two!

[1975BMW2002]

If you can build me a Maryland car, I'll give you $9,500. Right now I don't care if it looks like the Viking 35. It can even say Viking 35 on it. Just when I thought I was done with the cost report I realized I was just beginning.

Just for suspension we made:
all brackets, uprights, sway bars, A-arms, bellcranks, push rods, pull rods, toe links, spacers, and more. With some creative formatting, I squeezed it into 9 pages. It doesn't look all that great since sections are broken up by page breaks. oh well.

Back to work,
Bill

[MikeWaggoner at UW]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Denny Trimble:
Sold! I'll take two! <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Given my experience with racing suppliers and especially fsae, I'd be wary of delivery dates....