Cost Engineering: A Practical Method for Sustainable Profit Generation in Manufacturing

In today’s hyper-competitive, global marketplace, a manufacturing company needs a competitive edge if it is to survive and grow. That edge could be anything from superior manufacturing technology to innovative product design; from patent protection to solid, well-established customer relationships. One competitive edge available to all manufacturers, but realized by only a few, is the ability to accurately measure, control, and optimize costs throughout a product’s entire life cycle. The lack of a methodology to engineer cost optimization into every product makes attaining and maintaining profitability all that the more difficult.

Cost Engineering provides a means for a manufacturer to achieve and sustain profitability by designing and manufacturing products to specific cost requirements. It incorporates a variety of proven methodologies including cost estimating, cost control, and cost optimization.

Features:

Describes the components and organization of an effective cost optimization process

Provides detailed explanations of cost estimating techniques for many of the most common manufacturing processes

Explains the selection and use of appropriate cost allocation methods

Presents the fundamentals of cost-based negotiation

Includes both proper and improper executions of cost engineering principles

The details presented in this book are important to design engineers, manufacturing engineers, buyers, accountants, cost estimators, cost optimization specialists, and their managers and provides CEOs, COOs, general managers, product line managers, and plant managers with guidance on improving and sustaining profitability.

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Chris Domanski has over 25 years of experience in Cost Engineering, Purchasing, Finance, and Engineering in the automotive industry, most recently as a Senior Manager of Purchasing and Cost Optimization at Nexteer Automotive. Mr. Domanski has had the fortune of working for many great companies, large and small, such as Ford Motor Company, Continental Automotive, TRW, ZF Group, Methode Electronics, and Nexteer Automotive. Mr. Domanski had an opportunity to work for both customers and suppliers within the industry, thus sat on both sides of the negotiation table. In his career, he has been responsible for: quoting, where he developed business cases and cost allocation models; cost estimating, where he analyzed over three hundred supplier manufacturing plants and their cost structures; and cost optimization, where he was responsible for finding and implementing cost reduction initiatives. This unique experience has given Mr. Domanski an unmatched level of expertise in all areas of Cost Engineering discipline. He is thankful that he has been able to help many companies become more profitable and thus save and create a lot of jobs. He hopes that he also inspired others to do the same. To spread awareness of cost engineering principles and thus improve efficiency of all manufacturing industries, Mr. Domanski also administers a LinkedIn Group "Automotive Cost/Price Estimators, Engineers, Analysts, and Controllers" with over 5,200 members and is a frequent speaker at the annual Automotive Cost Engineering Conference in Detroit, MI.

Mr. Domanski graduated with a Bachelor’s of Science Degree in Mechanical Engineering from Wayne State University in Detroit, MI and a Master’s Degree in Business Administration with Finance concentration from Oakland University in Rochester Hills, MI. He also holds a certificate in Negotiation and Leadership from Harvard University Law School in Boston, MA.