Costimator Cost Estimating Software

Process Driven

Pros:

Dynamic, allows for development of processes.

Cons:

More graphing capability to show comparisons

Determined Cost Managing Program

Pros:

Costimator Cost brings the stipulated expenses for every business operation, and there are authentic reporting for accuracy.

Cons:

Costimator Cost is informative, and there is accountability, hence, smooth for companies.

Beware of Limitations

Comments: I am President of a company that recently purchased Costimator and 3DFX. We did a demo with one of our products and called two references. Our experience using the product in the first three months has unfortunately shown that 3DFX is so poor at recognizing features, and the system requires us to tell it everything about how our machines and processes run, from scratch, that it provided very little of the promised benefit. I gave it 2 stars because if you have highly custom products (like one of our sales engineers handles) and are willing to put all your speeds and feeds in and dont need 3DFX for anything more than a model viewer (which you can get for free), it does add some value. If you expect it to recognize enough features automatically or have any intelligence about how to make your product even after you give it your machine speeds and feeds you will be sadly disappointed!

Pros:

If you're willing to invest the time to put all your tools x materials x speeds and feeds and dont need the auto feature recognition of 3DFX you may be happy with Costimator.

Cons:

3DFX either doesnt recognize at least half the features on even what we consider an easy part let alone a complex one, or it gets the feature wrong and you have to catch it. Especially irregular features.

Costimator makes our quotes and estimating accurate, consistent, and fast!

Comments: Costimator makes our quoting and estimating accurate, consistent, and fast regardless of the user and their knowledge. Which in turn allows our products to be priced accurately and consistently for the customer. Landoll Corp. has seen it's most productive and financially best years since Costimator has been in use since 2009.

Pros:

Cost Modeler feature allows the user to make estimating tools that accurately reflect the company's processes and work centers.

Cons:

I wish I could modify and save the window sizes so that they open up the same size that I want every time.

Works for mostly everything I need.

Comments: Costimator allows me to create quoting templates that can be used and modified easily to create new estimates from similar quotes.

Pros:

Easily configurable for any manufacturing process.

Cons:

Takes a while to get it dialed in. Reports can be rather confusing at times to someone who is not familiar with the output.

WHAT A MISTAKE!!!

Comments: Buying this software was a terrible mistake. We just got training on the software and found out that the software does not take material volume into account when calculating the machining time. This is completely unacceptable! How can you estimate machine time without regard for the stock????!?! After complaining to the salesman, we were told that they don't do refunds. DON'T BUY THIS SOFTWARE

Pros:

Not a redeeming quality

Cons:

This software seems to be a series of spreadsheet calculations which comes up with a coarse estimate for costing. Anyone with a excel could do the same thing. Anyone with a modern CAD/CAM system can get more accurate cycle time estimates that this crude software.

moose

Comments: THE KEY TO SUCCESS IN A JOB SHOP THESE DAYS ARE TO TURN THE QUOTES AROUND FAST AND ACCURATE.

Pros:

EASE OF USE, COST MODELERS ARE GREAT, SPEED, ACCURACY

Cons:

NOTHING IT WORKS GREAT, MEETS ALL OUR NEEDS

Review on Costimator

Comments: Very Good, But can be even more better. Less knowledge in deployment.

Pros:

Easy to use Ease of handling the application

Cons:

Varied set up Options for process were less Have to Select all processes with manual entry of data

Costimator works in Kansas

Comments: I really like Costimator. I would recommend the software to anyone that needs a software that is easy to use, comes loaded with accurate information, and has the flexibility, with the Cost Modeler Feature, for the user to design the software to match their companies needs and requirements.

Pros:

-Easy to learn and use (even with limited knowledge) -Keep software current and improving -Cost Modeler (great feature that allows the user to custom design the software to their needs) -MTI stays in contact after the sale -Scan and attach feature (attach documents to software) -Reports feature -Notes feature -Windows based -Software comes full of features and databases of information -Pictures showing the different tools for reference -Webinars

Cons:

-Feature for 3D CAD software file -Easier to create reports (of the information the user wants)

Terrible software. Basically garbage

Comments: We have tried to contact MTI since they responded to our reviews offering to complete training. They are not answering after several attempts in writing. They lied in their response about the capabilities of the software and also lied about offering to do training. This is not a company anyone should consider doing business with.

Pros:

Salesman was very convincing

Cons:

Using it. The 3DFX option for solid model import is very weak and the system doesn't account for raw material in its machining calculations.

Consistant Knowledge Based Estimating Software

Comments: Costimator brings a level of consistency to estimating that prior methods could not match. I would recommend it to any manufacturer looking for a more consistently accurate approach to quoting potential work.

Pros:

Ease of use Cost Modeler feature is powerful. It allows you total control of the process you are modeling. Consistent results Drag & Drop functionality Annual software upgrades Import/Export utilities allow connections to other software User definable standards User definable cutting data After sale support and training Web based training sessions

Cons:

Make report and import/export templates easier to create More training on template creation

An asset to the company, it gets more exciting every day.

Pros:

Ease of access, speed, and reliability of all the information in the database. Simple to understand and modify to suit our business.

Cons:

Have not come across any to date. Some of the issues we experienced at present are with the way our previous costing package was set up. Our markups are done using factors (i.e. 1.25 or 1.5). In Costimator it only allows for percentages.

Simple and Easy to use

Pros:

The software is simple and straight forward, thus the learning curve is small. The after sale support is good. Have never faced any issue.

Cons:

The configuration part is tedious but MTI support helps setting up things . Some of the internal UI's can be made clutter free.