Sheet-metal cost has two main parts: costs that can be read directly from the CutList, mostly from the flat pattern, and post-processing costs tied to manufacturing features.
Costs available from the CutList
Material and basic manufacturing data can be extracted directly from the CutList. The main cost drivers are:
- Mass: material statistics can use weight or thickness. Unit weight and unit price differ by thickness, so this is a pure material cost.
- Cut area: modern laser cutting is often priced by cut area. Outer contours are based on area. Inner contours differ because some holes can be produced by punching.
- Bend count: most suppliers count the number of bends. Some larger factories also distinguish bend length because equipment wear costs differ.
- Paint area: holes inside a sheet-metal part are still included because painting does not stop at those openings. Powder coating and chemical treatments may calculate the area differently. The software should expose all values and let the user choose the applicable method.
- Nesting: material utilization in the production nest directly affects sheet-metal cost.
Post-process costs
Material-related cost is mostly derived from the flat pattern. Process cost is different: in a part file, it appears through many individual manufacturing features.
One advantage of ZCAD is that tools are centralized on the server. Unlike standalone software, users can create processes in many different ways. If sheet-metal process tools are limited to sheet metal and alternative modeling methods are blocked, usage of a specific tool, such as a rivet nut, can be counted reliably within a part.
Arrays require special care. Both the source of a pattern and nested patterns that use another pattern as their source must be counted.
In SolidWorks, CutList statistics are relatively easy because the sheet-metal CutList is already available. Process statistics are much harder: each process needs an independent, customized database and price table. This can become a substantial data project.
Watch the related sheet-metal cost statistics demo on Bilibili.