Solutions
Cast because the last one was cast. Machined because the shop machines. Partimation screens a part against casting, molding, forging, machining, sheet metal and additive together — each verdict naming the constraint behind it — and solves the exact quantity where a cheaper process takes over.
Where it shows up
The first order was forty pieces and you machined it from bar. The reorder is four thousand and it's still going down the same billet route, because nobody went back and re-asked the question when the number moved.
The owner says cast it, the programmer says machine it, and whoever has been here longest usually wins. None of that is a screen of this part's geometry at this quantity against what each process can actually do.
A wall too thin to fill, an undercut a closed die can't core, a part outside the machine class you run. You hear about it when the toolmaker calls back, not while the process is still an open question.
Ask where die casting starts beating a machined billet run and you get a range, from memory, from a job five years ago at a different alloy price. Nobody writes it down because nobody solved it.
What it costs
This isn't a bad quote — it's a bad tool. Tooling cut for a part that was never going to be the cheapest way to make it at that quantity, or a billet route run for thousands of pieces because the first forty went fine. By the time the crossover shows up it is in an invoice, and the reorder is where you find it. On the buy side it's worse and quieter: a price accepted without ever knowing the part had a cheaper process in it.
How it plays out
Casting, molding, forging, machining, sheet metal and additive get screened together from a single file, each coming back feasible, marginal or infeasible with the constraint that drove it — so an infeasible verdict is a specific thing you can design against rather than a score to take on faith. ProcessDFM.
Every feasible process carries a should-cost curve across quantities, and the quantity where one process gets cheaper than another is solved in closed form rather than eyeballed off two lines on a chart. Every cost line names the rate, posture setting or engine rule that produced it. CostDFM.
Dies, molds, patterns and core boxes are priced by one tool-cost model and amortized into the per-piece curve rather than sitting beside it as a lump sum — which is the thing that moves the crossover quantity in the first place. ToolDFM.
Once the family is chosen the route gets built — tooling, forming, degating and fettling, heat treatment, machining, finishing, and the inter-department handling and queue time an estimate usually drops — ranked cheapest, quickest or fewest steps, each step naming its rule. RouteDFM.
Already shipped
The screen is most useful on the day it disagrees with the shop's habit, and that is exactly the day nobody believes a ranking. So there isn't one to believe: every verdict names the capability rule that produced it, every cost line names the rate or rule behind it, and the crossover is a solved quantity you can check against your own tool quote. Partimation is decision support, not a final answer — confirm the fit with your own engineering judgment before committing tooling.
Built into ProcessDFM.
Built into CostDFM.
Built into CostDFM.
Built into ToolDFM.
Built into RouteDFM.
See it for your team
FAQ
Forty pieces rarely pays back a die, and the screen says so with a number rather than a shrug. Each feasible process gets a should-cost curve across quantities, tool cost amortized into the per-piece figure, and the quantity where one process overtakes another is solved directly. At forty, you read the curve at forty.
Re-run the same part at the new quantity and the ranking can change, because the curves cross somewhere and the first order sat on the other side of it. Tooling that made no sense at forty pieces is amortized across four thousand. Screening again costs one upload, which is cheaper than finding the crossover on an invoice.
Habit is a sound default right up until the volume, the alloy, or the customer's target price moves. Screening a part against six process families takes one upload and returns the constraint behind each verdict, so re-opening the question is cheap and closing it again is quick. Most of the time the habit is confirmed. The exceptions are the expensive ones.
Reading a should-cost curve does not require knowing how to program a machine. Each process comes back feasible, marginal or infeasible with the constraint that drove it, and each cost line names the rate or rule that produced it. That is a supplier conversation you can have line by line instead of arguing about a total.
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