Cost Engineer: Should-Costs You Can Defend

What does DFMA mean for a cost engineer?

DFMA (Design for Manufacture & Assembly) gives cost engineers and procurement professionals a process-based costing engine — so you can build should-costs from first principles instead of relying on vendor quotes, spreadsheet-based clean-sheet models, or historical estimates. The cost breakdown structure shows exactly what drives the number: material, setup, cycle time, tooling, secondary operations, and overhead.

The result: you negotiate from a transparent, defensible position. Suppliers see that you understand their cost structure. And when a quote doesn’t make sense, you can point to the specific driver — not just push back on the total.

On this page

1. Build should-costs from first principles
2. Negotiate with transparent cost breakdowns
3. Compare global sourcing scenarios
4. Validate process routes independently
5. Example: finding the gap in a supplier quote
6. FAQ

A vendor quote tells you what a supplier will charge. A DFMA should-cost tells you what the part should cost based on process physics — independent of any supplier’s margin, overhead allocation, or negotiation strategy. Unlike a clean-sheet model built in a spreadsheet, DFMA provides validated process models and current cost data out of the box — so you spend time analyzing parts, not building and debugging costing infrastructure.

You select a manufacturing process, specify basic geometry and features, and DFMA calculates the cost from the ground up: material consumption, machine cycle time, setup amortization, tooling, and secondary operations. Every number has a traceable logic path that you (or your supplier) can audit.

A typical part analysis takes 15–45 minutes depending on complexity. Dynamic Cost Agent can reduce this further by automatically surfacing only the high-impact input questions. Most teams start with one commodity and 10–20 parts, then standardize a negotiation workflow from there.

Pushing back on a supplier quote with “that’s too high” rarely moves the conversation. Showing the supplier a breakdown that says “your material cost is in line, but your setup assumption implies half the production rate we’d expect for this machine class” does.

DFMA cost breakdowns are structured to support fact-based negotiations. You can share the driver-level structure (material, cycle time, tooling) without revealing your total target — focusing the discussion on the specific areas where the quote diverges from what the manufacturing data supports.

DFMA’s Global Costing Data lets you run the same part through the same process model in different countries — and see how labor rates, material prices, energy costs, and machine economics shift the cost structure. It’s the same methodology everywhere, so the comparison is apples-to-apples.

This is especially valuable for make/buy decisions and sourcing strategy: instead of collecting quotes from suppliers in three countries and trying to normalize them, you model the part once and compare regions instantly.

When a supplier proposes a manufacturing process, how do you know it’s the right one? When engineering specifies machining from bar stock, how do you know a near-net-shape route wouldn’t be cheaper at volume? Getting answers typically means collecting new quotes from new vendors — vendors who may not quote realistically on an unfamiliar part, or who may underbid to win your business.

DFMA lets you model alternative routes yourself and see the cost breakdown for each one instantly: injection molding vs die casting, stamping vs laser cutting, machining vs forging. You get a vendor-neutral comparison — so you can challenge a supplier’s process choice with data, or recommend a cheaper route to engineering with confidence.