John Deere Party Invitations with envelops

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R. Sebastian Schrader is a co-founder and Senior Process Specialist with aPriori Technologies, based in Concord, MA. aPriori (www.apriori.com) is the technology leader providing innovative cost management solutions to the discrete manufacturing industry. The cost management platform uses innovative, patent protected technologies, and is capable of using design information driven off of MCAD geometry. Additionally the ability to model production facilities (including machine capabilities, raw materials, and facility cost structure) and the specific cost accounting methodologies, accurate predictive, allow "forward looking" real time cost estimates.

As a doctoral candidate at the University of Illinois, Schrader was responsible for some of the seminal work that is the foundation of the aPriori cost management solution. Schrader holds a BS in Production Engineering from EAFIT University in Colombia and a MS in Manufacturing Engineering from the University of Illinois. While at UIUC, Sebastian worked at the John Deere Silvis Product Development Center as a Feature-Based Cost Specialist, analyzing cost data created with third-party costing packages and in-house costing techniques. Prior to UIUC, Schrader was a Research & Technical Staff member of the Interdisciplinary Research Center (IRC-CAD/CAM/CG) in Colombia, where he developed asynchronous tools for topology recovery, surface smoothing, and mesh optimization. Before working at IRC, Schrader was a joint owner of CAD-TEC Ltd where he worked as a consultant to firms in graphic design.

This cost information leverages existing information and data systems in a single cost platform, captures company specific costing practices, and makes this information available across the enterprise and accessible by any user in the organization.

aPriori's Cost Management Software Platform enables manufacturers to better understand product cost decisions early and throughout the product lifecycle. aPriori's Cost Management Platform empowers manufacturers to lower cost-of-goods sold (COGS), provides real-time visibility to "cost-critical" decision information, and builds critical cost knowledge to go on the business "offensive." aPriori's patent-protected cost management platform allows companies to assess, control, and reduce cost of goods sold by whole percentages. The aPriori Platform enables "Cost Knowledge Before it Matters."

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På Big Tractor Meet i Indal var traktorer, bilar, folk och fest.

At Big Tractor Meet in Indal, Sweden, there was tractors, cars, people and party.

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MCAD and PLM markets are maturing and a PLM market that continues to miss the hopeful expectations of the industry pundits. There have not been significant advances in MCAD since the late 1980's. The game changing technology of ‘feature based solid modeling' has become a commodity as all of the players have caught up over the past decade. For a variety of reasons the PLM market has underperformed. Although the theory of product lifecycle management is sound, realizing the vision has eluded many companies, taken far longer, cost much more than expected, and failed to deliver as promised.

According to Frank Azzolino, President of aPriori Technologies, "Real time, predictive cost assessments are required to allow discrete manufacturers to reduce product costs, drive profits and support. One of the reasons for this is the inherent disconnect between the goals and objectives of the product-centric engineering constituents and a company's financially based business objectives. There is no better example of this disconnect than the stark difference between the language of engineering and the language of business. MCAD and PLM have historically focused on the engineering and design aspects of product delivery. The language of engineering as spoken by MCAD and PLM is based on physical attributes of the product and technological capabilities of the software solutions used."

The language of the business is time and money. It is no secret that the profit motive is what drives critical company decisions. It is also no secret that much of a product's ability to achieve the expected financial goals is driven by design and manufacturing decisions that occur very early in and continually throughout the product delivery process. The holy grail of ‘collaboration' is meaningless if the parties are not speaking a common language. The ‘lingua franca' that translates the language of engineering into the language of business is ‘cost', specifically, product cost.

Extending beyond the design engineering value, accurate product cost estimates offload the estimating burden from manufacturing engineers and planners already challenged with demanding production schedules, decreasing capital investment, and a dwindling experience base. In addition, predictive cost assessments offer procurement and sourcing professionals a much needed "should cost" from which to make better, more efficient sourcing decisions while negotiating from a fact-based position. Finally, program and project management benefit from real time visibility to product cost information continually throughout the product development and delivery process thus avoiding the sudden shock of bad news late in the process.

The result, product cost knowledge, is the common language spoken across the enterprise and is clearly focused on the business goals (as opposed to parochial product or feature oriented goals) that reduce costs, increase margins and contribution, drive profits and support growth.

Based in Concord, MA, aPriori (www.apriori.com) is the technology leader providing innovative cost management solutions to the discrete manufacturing industry. aPriori's Cost Management Software Platform enables manufacturers to better understand product cost decisions early and throughout the product lifecycle. aPriori's Cost Management Platform empowers manufacturers to lower cost-of-goods sold (COGS), provides real-time visibility to "cost-critical" decision information, and builds critical cost knowledge to go on the business "offensive." aPriori's patent-protected cost management platform allows companies to assess, control, and reduce cost of goods sold by whole percentages. The aPriori Platform truly enables "Cost Knowledge Before it Matters."

"aPriori has customers in a variety of industries including High Technology, Industrial Equipment, Automotive, and Heavy Machinery. Recent aPriori customers include John Deere, Panasonic, Thomas & Betts, JLG, Wrobel Engineering, and Dana Corporation."

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Ethan's near run in with family members and circle turning on his new John Deere tractor.

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The holy grail of ‘collaboration' is meaningless if the parties are not speaking a common language. The ‘lingua franca' that translates the language of engineering into the language of business is ‘cost', specifically, product cost.

In the current issue of The Insider found at www.accountingsoftware411.com, Frank Azzolino, CEO of aPriori Technologies discusses how the business operations focus is on financially related concerns such as margin, contribution, and profit. The language of the business is time and money. It is no secret that the profit motive is what drives critical company decisions. It is also no secret that the ability for the product to achieve the expected financial goals is driven by design and manufacturing decisions that occur very early in (and continually throughout) the product delivery process.

MCAD and PLM have historically focused on the engineering and design aspects of product delivery. The language of engineering as spoken by MCAD and PLM is based on physical attributes of the product and technological capabilities of the software solutions used. The result is a series of conversations about features, rounds, fillets, and chamfers.

Major PLM and MCAD providers long for acceptance and penetration outside of engineering departments at the same time the major ERP (enterprise resource planning) vendors strive to enter the engineering and product delivery arena.

In each of these application platforms, PLM and ERP, cost can be managed. On the ERP side, costs are always historical; these costs are available to be managed only after production. While it is more difficult to manage costs on the PLM side of the house, it is often potentially more valuable. The need for real- time, predictive costs are essential to allow design and manufacturing teams to avoid and eliminate costs early in the process (when critical cost-driving decisions are made.) Currently the array of MCAD, PLM, and ERP applications do not allow for the ability to generate this early cost knowledge.

The aPriori v4.0 Cost Management Software Platform provides real-time, predictive cost assessments throughout the entire product development and delivery process. aPriori v4.0 enables designers and engineers, manufacturing engineers and planners, purchasing and sourcing professionals, cost managers, and program/project management to make better decisions to reduce, avoid, and recover product costs. aPriori's solutions enable manufacturing companies to measurably reduce their Costs-of-Goods Sold (COGS) by whole percentages by identifying quantifiable savings in material, tooling, labor and overhead while evaluating alternative designs, manufacturing processes, and vendor sources.

About aPriori
Based in Concord, MA, aPriori is the technology leader providing innovative cost management solutions to the discrete manufacturing industry. aPriori's Cost Management Software Platform enables manufacturers to better understand product cost decisions early and throughout the product lifecycle. aPriori's Cost Management Platform empowers manufacturers to lower cost-of-goods sold (COGS), provides real-time visibility to "cost-critical" decision information, and builds critical cost knowledge to go on the business "offensive." aPriori's patented cost management platform allows companies to assess, control, and reduce cost of goods sold by whole percentages. The aPriori Platform truly enables "Cost Knowledge Before it Matters."

"aPriori has customers in a variety of industries including High Technology, Industrial Equipment, Automotive, and Heavy Machinery. Recent customers include John Deere, Panasonic, Thomas & Betts, Flextronics, JLG, and Dana Corporation."

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