5 Questions for Better Cost Management Discussions (Industry Week Series Part 1)

Education, PCM Technique / Cost Models, Product Cost in Industry, Project Cost Management, Uncategorized No Responses »

Jul 022020

Hello Cost Management aficionados!

We have an exciting new series that our managing partner, Eric Hiller, is writing for Industry Week, who has eagerly accepted all the content. The series is all about how an executive (and other people who are not cost experts) can understand what the cost management team is communicating. The first in the series was just published yesterday. Here is a short snippet as a teaser:

A big part of the communication problem is that there is not just one type of cost model. Cost management is a broad field with a variety of methodologies to address the almost infinite world of situations for which one wants to know the cost of manufacture or service delivery. Even if an executive has some understanding of one particular cost-modeling technique, it can often be confusing when the analytics team uses different technique.

This can lead to uncomfortable meeting, where executives and colleagues outside of the cost management team are confused how to understand the results and/or have low confidence in the results. Conversely, the cost management team may feel frustrated that executives are not listening to them or do not trust their conclusions.

What is the solution? The short answer is that the product cost management team needs to better educate their audiences, not only on their results, but how they got to those results. In addition, it is incumbent upon their colleagues to be willing to learn, and invest the time to become conversant in the terminology of cost management just like they would in other function areas, e.g. product development, purchasing, finance, etc.

Please click this link to read the article: 5 Questions for Better Cost Management Discussions

We look forward to your engagement, comments , and sharing.

Thanks!

Hiller Associates

aPriori — PCM / Spend Analytics Solution Profile

PCM Technique / Cost Models, Project Cost Management, Software Tools (for PCM, ERP, PLM, etc.), Spend Analytics No Responses »

Jun 092020

Hello again cost management aficionados!

Spend Matters just published Eric Hillers’s next deep dive on cost management tools — this time on the article reviewing aPriori. They decided to break it into 2 articles. The first one went up on June 8

https://spendmatters.com/2020/06/08/apriori-product-cost-management-tool-spotlight-part-1-solution-overview/

It is behind their paywall, so you will only see a teaser of a few paragraphs, unless you have a subscription.

You all may remember that I did a two-part series on the history and landscape of PCM and Spend Analytics solutions with our good friends over at SpendMatters.com in December. You can find those jumping off point analysis here and here.

Please check it out over at Spend Matters. One caveat: I have been the victim of my own success in that Spend Matters thinks the article such good content that you will see a teaser article and then need to pass through their paywall to see the full analysis.

Here’s a teaser of some of the insight that you’ll get:

VIDEO — Design-to-Value:An introduction and the impact it can have in your company

Design-to-Value, Operational improvement, PCM Technique / Cost Models, Uncategorized No Responses »

Apr 082020

So… the bad news is that you (and/or your colleagues) missed Eric Hiller’s webinar class on Design-to-Value, sponsored by GLG.

But, the good news is, it was video captured and is available on-demand and for FREE, any time you want to watch it! (Just fill out the registration form at the bottom and the video will start.)

And, let’s be honest, you’ve probably exhausted all the “A” content on your streaming services. Why not spend 1-hour learning about the impact that DtV has on companies from one of the world’s top practitioners. And, Eric will touch on should-cost / how to create cost models to support the DtV effort, to.

(Plus, this actually *IS* real work and research to help your company.)

Agenda for the presentation

2 min – Who’s teaching today?
5 min – What is Design-to-Value and what impact can it have?
30 min – An Introduction to the DtV process
- Scoping the project and choosing products / services
- Assembling the team
- Sourcing candidates and competitors
- Fact pacts & tear downs
- Ideation workshops
- Prioritization & ROI biz cases
- Clustering & Chartering
5 min – A quick look at should-cost (bottom-up cost models)
5 min – How to get started with a DtV project
15 min – Questions, answers, and discussions

CLICK HERE to learn about Design-to-Value!

What should it cost? (Eric publishes on the McKinsey & Company Ops Extranet)

PCM Technique / Cost Models, Product Cost in Industry, Product Cost Management, Uncategorized No Responses »

Nov 212017

Hello all!

As some of you may know, I joined McKinsey & Company a little over two years ago as an expert in their Product Development Design-to-Value practice. (Don’t tell anyone, but I do a lot of work for clients in the purchasing space, too!).

It’s been a whirlwind of a couple years, but I finally got some time to publish some new thought leadership. I just did this on McKinsey Ops Extranet, sadly not here. But, the good news is, you can join for FREE, so don’t be worried when you see you need to register.

Here’s the first. Enjoy! Oh, and may sure to 5-star my post if you read it and like it. Thanks.

What should it cost?

(Welcome to the standard costing party! What’s this all about?)

Project Cost Management vs. Product Cost Management

PCM Technique / Cost Models, Product Cost in Industry, Product Cost Management 13 Responses »

Apr 222013

Good Morning PCM world,

Another reader sent in questions with respect to the article 2012 revenues of the Product Cost Management market. However, this question was a little more broad:

Is there any difference between Project cost management and Product cost management from your your point of view?

That’s a very simple but good question. We had not considered addressing it before the question came in. The short answer is “YES!,” there is a big difference. The big difference is as simple as the two words:

PRODUCT vs. PROJECT

We have defined Product Cost Management before here as:

Product Cost Management – An agreed, coherent, and publicized system of culture/goals, processes, people, and tools following the product lifecycle, that ensures the product meets its profit (or cost) target on the day that it launches to the customer.

The definition of “Project Cost Management” is more murky. The wiki entry on Project Cost Management is less than satisfying. Here is the main definition portion of the entry:

“Project cost management (PCM) is a method which uses technology to measure cost and productivity through the full life cycle of enterprise level projects.[citation needed] PCM encompasses several specific functions of project management that include estimating, job controls, field data collection, scheduling, accounting and design.”

Other resources for a definition are Ecosys EPC, the Project Smart blog, Hard Dollar Software, and TutorialsPoint. Based on the knowledge from these sources, we would define Project Cost Managemenet as:

Project Cost Management – Project cost management is a group of techniques, including budgeting, forecasting/estimating, change control, field data collection, scheduling, accounting and design, and reporting that are used together to ensure that a project is completed at its target cost and on schedule. It is most often associated with the construction industry. In construction projects, it would include tracking of both project costs and the costs of the materials for structure being built. In the world of manufacturing, it would only include the costs of the project such as R&D and SG&A.

Note that in the definition we make a distinction between two very different industries: Manufacturing vs. Construction. In construction, we are most often making one thing — some sort of structure WHILE we are in in the midst of the project itself. In manufacturing, we are undertaking the project in order that we make many copies of a product in the future (when production begins). In manufacturing, we call the project, “Product Development,” including sourcing, testing, design, manufacturing planning, etc. In manufacturing, which is our primary focus on this blog, there is a fundamental difference in Product vs. Project cost management that goes all the way to the income statement itself.

Income Statement and Product Cost Hiller Associates

CLICK TO ENLARGE!

See the figure to above to understand the focus of Product vs. Project Cost Management on an example income statement for a manufacturing company. The question then probably arises in everyone’s minds: Do we need both and which one is more important? That’s beyond this article, but maybe we can talk about it further in the future, if there is interest. We’ve left you some clues to answer those questions yourself in the figure above.

In the meantime, somebody call the Project Cost Management guys and tell them they are infringing our acronym! Everyone knows that the *real* PCM stands for PRODUCT Cost Management!

Cost of Quality: Defined by Equation, But Not By Graph?

PCM Technique / Cost Models, Product Cost in Industry 4 Responses »

Jan 022013

I was just reading a really interesting article by Matthew Littlefield called Cost of Quality Definition. I applaud the article for several reasons. It is straightforward, clear, and short. I especially like that Matthew acknowledged that Cost of Quality is not only in negative things that are avoided (warranties, recalls, scrap, etc.), but also that there are costs to prevent these negative consequences (cost of appraisal and prevention).

This sounds like a trivial thing, but I remember living through the 1990’s where some academics and practitioners had a cultic obsession with quality. They would hammer you with the idea of cost of ‘poor’ quality. As a university student and engineer I would say, “Well, yes, but obviously you pay something to ensure good quality and avoid recalls, customer satisfaction loss, etc., right? I mean, there is a level of quality that is not worth while attaining, because the customer does not value it and will not pay for it.” The quality obsessed would look at me like I had just uttered vile heresy and inform me that having good quality NEVER cost the organization anything – only poor quality did. Mr. Littlefield’s definition makes a lot more sense.

What does not make sense is Mr. Littlefield’s engaging, but definitionless graph in the article. The axes are not labeled, either with specific financial units, or with general conceptual terms. Furthermore, in the paragraphs before and after, his discussion is about the trade-off needed to find the minimum between Cost of Good Quality and Cost of Poor Quality… but the graph has three axes? Maybe on axis Total Cost and the others are Cost of Good Quality and Cost of Poor Quality?

Can someone explain?

New Article by HA in Tech Clarity: PRODUCT COST MANAGEMENT AS A LINK BETWEEN ENTERPRISE SYSTEMS

PCM Technique / Cost Models, Product Cost Management, Software Tools (for PCM, ERP, PLM, etc.) No Responses »

Nov 052012

Last week, Hiller Associates published an article in Tech-Clarity with the title:

PRODUCT COST MANAGEMENT AS A LINK BETWEEN ENTERPRISE SYSTEMS

Here’s an outline of the article:

Siemens PLM recently bought Perfect Costing Solutions from Tsetinis & Partner. What does this mean?
To answer this, let’s first ask, what IS Product Cost Management and what does PCM software really “do”?
Now that we know what PCM software really does, who would value this in the Enterprise Software world?
There are look’s of possible categories of enterprise software that could value PCM software, but the most likely are PLM and ERP.
Product Cost Management software is really a bridge linking the engineering language of physical things to the rest of the organization (purchasing, supply chain, finance, manufacturing, etc.) who primary speak the financial language of dollars.
If independent PCM software companies are not bought by a large PLM or ERP player, what are the other possible options for their future?

Here’s a teaser diagram from the article, just because who doesn’t like maps?

Product Cost Management Bridge from PLM to ERP Hiller Associates

Click to Enlarge! The position of PCM Software in the Enterprise World

My thanks to Jim Brown and Tech-Clarity for the publishing platform to discuss this subject – Eric Arno Hiller

Your Should-cost Number is Wrong, But It Doesn’t Matter

PCM Technique / Cost Models, Product Cost Culture, Purchasing / Sourcing 12 Responses »

Oct 292012

Last week Hiller Associates published an article on Should-cost in one of the leading online magazines for manufacturing companies, IndustryWeek.com. Below is a synopsis of the article. However, you may want to just read the article here:

Your Should-cost Number is Wrong, But It Doesn’t Matter

Should cost is not perfect, but it does not matter, because its purpose is to be a leverage tool to improve negotiated cost, regardless of the should-cost number’s absolute accuracy.

What is should cost?
Methods of should cost?
Uses of should cost, specifically to reduce the price of products one buys
No one expected Peter Lynch to achieve his absolute return predications for a stock
How to use should cost as pricing pressure

The Voice of Should-Cost (Voices Series, Part 3)

PCM Technique / Cost Models, Product Cost Culture, Purchasing / Sourcing, Uncategorized 4 Responses »

Jul 092012

It’s been a couple of weeks, since we discussed the Voices series, so if this post is interesting to you, you may want to go back and read the first two:

In these first two articles we introduced several of the voices that are always present in the Product Cost Management conversation, including:

The Voice of Hopefulness – the Pollyanna voice that assumes product cost will just work itself out in the end. It is a voice of justification to ignore Product Cost Management, because the team is just too busy at XYZ point in the development process to seriously consider product cost. Hope is NOT a strategy.
The Voice of Resignation – the nihilist voice that assumes that you have to accept high prices because the three suppliers that purchasing quoted gave you pricing far higher than what seems reasonable
The Voice of Bullying – the seemingly unreasonable scream of the customer telling you what your product should cost — not based on reality, but based on the customer’s own financial targets.

However, there is another voice in the conversation that can bring some reason to the cacophony. It is a voices of reason — the Voice of Should-cost.

Buck-up Cowboy. The Voice of Should-cost Can Help

Should-cost is just what it sounds like, using one or more techniques to provide an independent estimate of what the cost of a part or product “should” be. The question is, what does “should” really mean? For many, the definition depends on the type of cost being calculated, as well as personal should-cost calculation preferences. I will provide my own definition here, mostly targeted at providing a should-cost for a discretely manufactured part.

Should-Cost – The process of providing an independent estimate of cost for a part, assembly, component, etc. The should-cost is based on a specific design, that is made with a specific manufacturing process, and at a supplier with a specific financial structure. Or, the should-cost is calculated assuming a fictitious supplier in a given region of the world that uses the best manufacturing technology, efficiency operating at maximum sustainable capacity.

I realize that this is a broad definition, but as I said, it depends what you want to estimate. For instance, do you know the supplier’s exact manufacturing routing, overhead and labor rates, machine types, etc.? In this case, do you want to estimate what it “should” cost to manufacture the part under these conditions? OR… do you want to know what the cost “should” be for a new supplier who is well-suited to manufacture your design and has a healthy but not overheated order book? Although you could make many other assumptions, the point is: KNOW YOUR ASSUMPTIONS. You will note that I said nothing about margin. Some people call this a “Should-Price,” while others call it a “Should-Cost” referring to what they will pay vs. what the part costs the supplier to make. The only difference is that you will also make an assumption for a “reasonable” margin for a Should-Price.

The important point is that the team relying on the should-cost information must define the scenario for which they want a should-cost estimate. There is nothing wrong with wanting an answer for all these scenarios. In fact, it’s preferable. Run the calculation / estimate more than once.

Should-cost, Should Be a Choir, not a Solo Act

Manufacturing cost is a very tricky thing to calculate. I often say that the true cost of the economic resources to make a part or product is a number known but to God. Put statistically, you can’t know the true meaning or standard deviation of a population, you can only estimate it from the samples that you take. People take two common approaches to should-cost.

The Pop Star Solo Act

The popular solution that too many people pursue is the solution pictured at the right.

There’s no easy button to should-cost

They want the easy button — the single source of truth. They want the plasticized overproduced solo pop star version of should cost, i.e. the easy button tool. There’s nothing wrong with this and there are some really good should-cost solutions available, but none of them are infallible. In addition, it is not appropriate to put the same should-cost effort into each part or assembly in a problem. One should focus where the money is. However, too many people, especially cost management experts, become sycophants of one particular tool to the exclusion of others.

Single estimates in Product Cost Hiller Associates

The Lonely World of a Solo Should-cost Voice

Looking at the diagram to the left, you can see what the landscape looks like when you make your comparisons to one point in cost space. It is an uncertain, scary world when you only have one point of reference. In this case, all one can do is try to force a supplier to match the should-cost output of your favorite tool.

The Andrews Sisters, Competitive Trio Quoting

The other very popular approach comes from the purchasing department: three competitive quotes. If the auto-tuned single pop star should-cost is too uncertain, purchasing will listen to a trio instead. Why three quotes?

Supplier quotes in Product Cost Hiller Associates

The Trio of Should-cost Quoting

No one seems to know, but in EVERY purchasing department with which I have ever worked, three shall be the number of the quoting, and the number of the quoting shall be three. [If you are an engineer, you know my allusion. If not, watch the video to the left!] The trio of quotes in the diagram to the right do help clarify the picture a little better, but there is still too much uncertainty and what I call “commercial noise” to really believe that the quotes alone bound what the should-cost plus a reasonable margin is in reality.

An Ensemble of Should-Cost Estimates

Returning to our statistics example, one of the first things you learn in statistics is that it takes about 33 samples to characterize a bell curve distribution. At 33 samples, you can start to approximate the true mean and standard deviation of the actual population. I am not saying that one needs 33 estimates of should-cost to triangulate on the true cost, but you should get as many as you can within a reasonable time frame. Have a look at the diagram at the right to see this illustrated. Instead of the single pop star approach or the Andrews Sisters trio of quotes, hopefully what you get is a well-tuned small chorus of voices who start to drown out the Voices of Resignation, Hope, and Bullying. The chorus of should-cost estimates start to bound the “true” should-cost of the part or product and can give the team a lot more confidence.

Triangulating on Product Cost Hiller Associates

Chorus of Should Cost [CLICK TO ENLARGE!]

Sometimes the team does not have time to assemble all the voices of should-cost. Not all parts or products are worth assembling the full choir. More often than not, the organization is either unaware of the should-cost voices at its disposal, or are just too lazy to assemble them.

Don’t let your organization be lazy or sloppy with respect to should-cost, and remember that the best music is made when groups of instruments and voices work together, not when one person sings in isolation.

p.s. Bonus PCM points if you can guess what a cappella group is pictured in the thumb nail to the post

All That Glitters Isn’t Gold… and Neither Are Product Material Cost “Multipliers”

PCM Technique / Cost Models, Product Cost in Industry 8 Responses »

May 072012

I happened to stumble upon an article on SpendMatters from a few weeks ago by Sheena Moore:

Friday Rant: What’s in a Brand? For Tiffany’s new “Rubedo” Cuff, a Preposterous Mark-Up

The article about the manufacturing cost versus the price of a new bracelet at Tiffany. If you don’t know what Tiffany is, you’re probably unmarried and have not been dating. Some say you can’t put a price on love; Tiffany disagrees and will help you do it! The first great thing about the article is Sheena’s calling out of Tiffany’s deceiving marketing. Apparently, they told her the bracelet is made of a golden “metal” called “Rubedo.” No ladies it’s not gold; it’s something better; it’s Rubedo. (Rubedo is actually just an alloy that helps Tiffany water down the gold to make more $$$. Sheena and I had a good laugh about this on the phone).

Sheena’s article caught my eye for two reasons. First, I’m just really cheap, and the idea of a $7,500 bracelet made of 55% Copper and 31% Gold flabbergasted me. However, more interesting than my miserly instincts was that Sheena does a nice little product cost analysis of the bracelet. In doing so, she highlights another form of fool’s gold: Material Cost Multipliers.

The Material Cost Multiplier

Material Cost Multipliers are a simple idea. They postulate that one can first calculate the cost of a product’s raw material and multiply it by a number to get the overall “Piece Part” cost. But wait, you may object: how can this be valid? Why would someone vastly oversimplify the product cost calculation like that? That’s simple: calculating actual cycle times and tooling costs for each machine needed in the product’s manufacture is HARD, and it requires a lot of manufacturing knowledge.

Material Cost Multipliers just sweep all that nastiness under the rug… or into the multiplier, in this case. They have the following assumptions:

Assumption 1: Parts is Parts. Remember the old Wendy’s commercial making fun of the contents of Chicken McNuggets? No? Well I do, and you can too, by watching the video below.

The Material Cost Multiplier inherently assumes that all parts that you are manufacturing require the same processes and have the same complexity of design. For example, assume that our Tiffany bracelet and this Gucci Earring had the same mass:

Assume these had the same mass!

Would you guess that both of these items take the same effort to make? If you said ‘no,’ you are right.

Assumption 2: The Biggest Loser – The Material Cost Multiplier also assumes that the part mass is very highly correlated to the part’s processing costs. Therefore, the more mass you lose, the more your processing cost goes down in DIRECT correlation. There is no doubt that many manufacturing costs do have a correlation to the mass of the part, but many do not. For example, the polishing or burnishing of the Tiffany bracelet is much more dependent on the surface area burnished, the complexity of the surface, and the hardness (composition) of the material than the mass of the item.

The Cost of the Tiffany Bracelet

Sheena received notice from a colleague that material is only about 25% of the cost of an item. So, Sheena first did a nice material cost analysis of the bracelet. She says that the cost of material is $1,500. Although, she does not account for scrap or loss, this is a pretty good assumption, given that this type of material which can be re-melted. Also, the manufacturing process is likely a net form process, where there is virtually no loss in specific design). I would, however, question the assumption that:

Material Cost = 25% * Piece Part Cost.
Or, Materal Cost * 4 = Piece Part Cost. Basically, 4 is her Material Cost Multiplier.

First of all, that seems backwards in the world of simple metal part manufacturing which, in my experience would be more likely to have:

Material Cost = 75% * Piece Part Cost
Materal Cost * 1.33 = Piece Part Cost).

In fact, I think the processing costs are even lower than my general assumption. Just looking at the picture of the bracelet, my guess is that this is made by a routing such as:

Extrusion Routing for Jewelry Hiller Associates

CLICK TO ENLARGE! Tiffany Bracelet Mfg Routing

Extrusion is very efficient and cheap, especially for a straight cylinder. I would shoot from the hip and say the processing is definitely under $20 (probably under $10). Let’s say we have the $1500 raw mat’l cost + $20 processing/logistics + $100 for marketing (which might be outrageously high). That’s a $1,600 Fully Burdened Cost for the high class Wonder Woman wrist bracer (you’ll need 2 for Halloween). At a price of $7,500, just one bracelet is generates $5,900 PROFIT (370+% margin)! I did a product cost analysis in one of the commercial Product Cost Estimation tools for a very similar looking part to the Wonder Woman Tiffany Bracer, and I got a result of $5.25 (Extrusion = $2.20, Flaring = $0.7, Marking = $0.50, Polishing = $1.30, Packaging – $0.55). My former co-founder’s wife owns a florist and gift shop and once told me told me once that typical mark-up for jewelry is ~50%, so the bracelet should be priced (at max) at $3,200, not $7,500.

So are Material Cost Multipliers bad?

No, they are not necessarily bad or inaccurate… but they often can be because they are misapplied. It’s important to know:

What processes will be used to make a product? Each major process probably needs its own multiplier for accuracy.
What physical part attribute most strongly drives cost in each process?
Make sure if someone gives you a multiplier that it is based on these considerations?

Consider the differences:

Sheena’s general manufacturing Material Cost Multiplier = 4x –>Processing Cost = $6,000!
Eric’s general simple part metal manufacturing Material Cost Multiplier = 1.33x –> Processing Cost = $1,900!
Eric’s manufacturing “judgment” from experience and given the the routing Eric assumed Processing Cost = $20 –> Material Cost Multiplier = 0.013x!!!
The Product Cost Estimation Tool’s estimate of Processing Cost = $5.25 –> Material Cost Multiplier = 0.003x!!!

There is no doubt in my judgment that the Product Cost Estimation tool is the closest to reality. Regardless, a fast back-of-the-envelope calculation is far better than nothing. I am a big fan of common sense and back-of-the-envelope reality checks. I applaud Sheena’s effort, which, honestly, is more than many design engineers or purchasing engineers would do in considering the profit impact of their decisions.

Conclusions

Material Cost Multipliers are useful, but can be dangerous. They should be applied by experts or with expert guidance.
My analysis shows that Sheena is even MORE correct in that the bracelet is not worth it.
Kudos to Tiffany for Jedi Mind Tricking girls into believing a $1,600 bracelet is worth 3x as much.
Ladies, your boyfriend’s/fiancee’s/husband’s willingness to buy you the Tiffany Rubedo bracelet may mean he’s filthy rich, desperate, or not too smart… but it may not necessarily mean he loves you. Admittedly, that’s just my guess… but then again, I’m a product cost guy, not the love Dr.)

Eric

p.s. Guys, perhaps you would be interested in buying the woman of your dreams the Hiller Associates RubedA bracelet. It’s just like the Tiffany RubedO bracelet, but MINE is 35% gold, not 31% like Tiffany. The only difference is my bracelet will say “H&CO” where Tiffany’s says “T&CO”, and likewise mine says Hiller’s, instead of “Tiffany’s”. It’s a bargain at $4,999, versus Tiffany’s $7,500. H&CO: “Don’t just show her your love; show her your intelligence.”