How Much Does Software Really Cost?

HOW MUCH DOES SOFTWARE REALLY COST? UI Corp. - LOST $400,000.00 in 4 months because of their nesting software! UI received a contract to cut the parts in the pictures. They cut the parts 24 hour a day, 7 days a week on two lasers for 4 months before they saw the PEP automatic nesting results. By switching to the PEP nesting results UI saved $100,000.00 per month for the next six months ($80,000.00 in material and $20,000.00 in machine time) ! THE ILLUSION… Due to the size of the order there was considerable money to be lost or made if the parts were not nested and cut efficiently. With only 3 parts per nest, the programmers ran the Metamations automatic nesting software and then manual manipulated the nests. After 3 hours of editing the Metamations automatic results the programmers were able to fit 24 kits per plate. Convinced they had the optimum results by what they saw on the graphics screen they cut the nests for 4 months, this turned out to be a $400,000.00 mistake. Fortunately, P.E.P. nested the same parts for UI in the 4 th month of production and got 27 kits per plate. Needless to say the engineers were shocked at the material savings and asked for the posted code. UI went on to cut the PEP code successfully for 6 more months. Had UI not cut the job with PEP they would have lost an additional $600,000.00. Each of the two PEP nests below were nested, sequenced and lead-ins assigned in less than 3 minutes.