Minneapolis, MN - Arranged by Dr. Ronald Lasky, Indium Corp of America/Dartmouth College, the SMTA Cost Estimating Guidelines with ProfitPro Software are intended to  model real-time cost estimating (RTCE) in the electronics industry.

While RTCE is simple in concept, manual calculations are tedious and cumbersome since they include production variables such as cycle time, hours/shift, shifts/day, days/week, set up time and unscheduled/scheduled downtime. Yield loss and cost of repair must also be considered, as well as inventory turns and interest rates.

Using these variables, ProfitPro, an Excel-based software application, can model RTCE for high-volume low-mix to low-volume high-mix lines. The software also has default values of cost metrics if the user does not know them, and can calculate:

- The amount of profit gained if setup time is reduced.

- The amount of profit gained if cycle time is decreased.

- The amount of profit gained if new equipment or materials increases productivity.