Estimated Price

[Anonymous]

Happy Tuesday all,

   Wasn't sure where to post this question/observation. I've been trying to figure out ways to leverage some of the features/tools in Inventor (2016). I noticed the "estimated cost" line from the "project" tab under iProperties. I think this is great, I'll enter the prices from our inventory and when  I open the assembly model it'll show me the total cost of the assembly. But for some reason, it doesn't total the prices of the parts contained in an assembly model. Either I will have to do it manually or write an iLogic program to do it. Anybody use this feature with any kind of sucess? For some reason I thought it would work that way because that would make sense, right? Why would Autodesk put those lines in iProperties and not link from the part files to the assembly model?

Just wondering...   Frank

[blair]

I've always looked at that field and wondered myself. Since there is no place to add a labour value to assembly the object, the unit price for each item is useless.

I guess you can export the data to an Excel sheet and add formulas to sum the cost of the items.

[mdavis22569]

I literally was just talking last week about using this field ...and trying help with quoting.  

So I guess we should ask Autodesk if anything can be done with this field?

@blair we were supposing what you said, export it to a excel and add it up... however it would be great if we could make an assembly and have  a total cost field option

[blair]

Possibly, it's there for a 3rd party application. Since there are currently no fields for Labour/Time and a Labour Rate along with other small Overhead Variables that would need to be added to the cost. The parts don't assembly them selves.

Different areas of the facility may have different rates that would need be applied.

Not really sure if ADSK is willing to take the next steps to incorporate a full Quotation functionality module into Inventor.

[mdavis22569]

Blair, I actually found a few older discussion on the forum asking about this too ..You were in both of them

[blair]

I need to get a life! 

[Anonymous]

Blair,

   The way our parts are entered into inventory, their cost includes material and labor. The only number at that point that would be required would be our labor cost for final assembly. We have an estimate for total hours required for most of our product line. So the assmebly cost + labor would give us a fair idea of what our unit cost is and so enable us to give more accurate quotes. My feeling is that if Autodesk is going to put those fields in the iProperties of parts and assemblies, the assembly model should show the total as long as you enter the information in the part files. And without the need to do any iLogoc programming. Thanks for your input.

Frank

[blair]

You can a add that Field in your BOM and then export the file to Excel to work with.

[mcgyvr]

IMO its only useful when

#1-you don't have an ERP system

#2-you only use it for material cost

Having an ERP system there is no way I would want to maintain costing information in 2 places..

Now if that field could be tied to my ERP system and automatically kept up to date then it would be useful to me.. 

same with "vendor" iprop and quite a few more

To the original problem.. If you added the costing for each sub assy in its iprops then you could just open the upper level assembly and had your true material cost there I'd think.. You could include labor/burden costing too in that subs cost and then you could quickly get everything except for the costing for the top level labor/burden.. 

[blair]

I agree, we have and use an ERP system, so I have never found any reason for this field as well. It would just be another field in which data would have to be entered and maintained.

[CAD-One]

Hi Frank,

Hope the attached video helps. I was able to create a new column "Estimated Cost" on BOM that reads values from the part. Later if we export to excel, we can get the estimated cost of all the parts in the assembly in one column. We can just sum them up.

Video

C1

[Curtis_W]

I'll chime in here, just to say:

I've always felt that putting pricing into CAD files was not the best idea, and could be better managed in Excel.

I've used the workflow of exporting the BOM / Parts list to an Excel template that housed the pricing info a lot it the past, when I used to have to generate take offs. It worked well, and if the pricing changed, it could be updated in one Excel file rather than hundreds of CAD files.

Many years back when China was buying all of the steel it could get to build the Three Gorges Dam, our material costs fluctuated quite a bit for many months. During that time I generated takes offs using an Excel price list that was updated when needed, and even that was not ideal, we just didn't have the ability to tie directly into the ERP at that time.

Here's a link that gives a basic example of doing this with Inventor and iLogic:

http://inventortrenches.blogspot.com/2011/06/ilogic-export-parts-list-with-options.html

I hope this helps.
Best of luck to you in all of your Inventor pursuits,
Curtis
http://inventortrenches.blogspot.com

[Anonymous]

Happy Monday All!

    I thought this thread was dead long ago. since I originally started this thread, I feel the need to update what I've done. I did finally get a handle on some basics of iLogic programming with plenty of help from this forum. That being said, with help from this forum, I finally got some functionality with that particular iProperties field. The key was creating a user parameter for cost, then writing a little iLogic code to take that information and place it into the iProperties "Estimated Cost" field. Works great with part files, not so great with assembly files. That being said, you do need to make sure to edit your parameters for each part to insure your material (also entered as a user parameter) is correct. I've done all that in the template files so all new part files have the required fields. I've also created custom snippets in the iLogic interface for all the material options we use. Took some time but well worth the effort.

   Thanks to Autodesk's migrate utility, all of these efforts are easily "pushed" into my legacy part files. I've also had some help with VBA macros that allows me to "create" my custom parameters in my existing part files and even my existing assembly files.

   We are a small shop with one seat of Inventor and one user (that would be me). So we don't use ERP software or PLM, just Inventor. I have plans for using Inventors ability to read and write to excel files for keeping our estimated cost up to date. But right now, it's inventory season, so that project is on the back burner until after the first of the year.

   I really appreciate all the help and expertise I've gotten on this forum. If anyone is interested in the iLogic code and parameter settings I use to get this done, I'll be happy to post it or send it directly to you.

   Thanks again for all the help and input.

Frank

[knguyen_]

Hello Frank,
Could you post the ilogic code it would be very helpful. 
Thanks

[CGBenner]

@knguyen_ 

Hello!

This is one of the dangers of replying to a thread that is so old.  The person you are replying to has not been active in this forum for several years, and will probably not respond.

I recommend that you create a new topic in the Inventor Customization forum, and paste a link back to this thread, and ask if anyone could help you with writing this ilogic code.  That might be the best way forward.

[johnsonshiue]

Hi! There is an app called, iBOM on Inventor App store. It seems to be able to tally up the costs.

https://apps.autodesk.com/INVNTOR/en/Detail/Index?id=7958477212958307920&appLang=en&os=Win64

Many thanks!