Case study

Manufacturing Cost Estimation Platform

Highlights

Enables manufacturers to reduce costs across components, supply chains and design.
Includes country-specific data that allow manufacturers to fine-tune development costs.
Major performance improvements from initial version. Almost 2x faster.

Technologies:

.NET, ASP.Net, MVC, CSS3, HTML5, React, TypeScript, MS SQL, TSQL/SQL Server, Azure

Services:

Business Analysis, Software Development, Software Testing, Project Management

7

Team Size

7 Years

Duration

Manufacturing

Industry

Solution

Cost-engineering helps manufacturers get an objective assessment of a product’s cost. It enables companies to reduce spending, from the technical design phase to production, and ultimately launch a competitively priced product.

The solution our team works on is a web-based benchmarking and cost engineering platform for manufacturers in the automotive industry. Benchmarking is essential in the vehicle development process as it provides valuable information about the competition.

The platform offers instant access to various information about competing vehicles, and it also allows the user, through a calculation tool, to discover country-specific costs for specific materials, logistics, etc.
The comparative data aids companies in establishing more accurate production budgets and reduce costs across components, for example, or better estimate production time.

Used by some of the largest multinational manufacturers of vehicles from Europe and Asia, the platform was also re-engineered and adapted for the telecom sector.

The web application and the associated database are hosted in the Azure Cloud.

Collaboration

Our client was developing a leading cost engineering platform for the automotive sector when it approached Fortech.

The UK-based firm tasked Fortech to enhance the platform dedicated to reducing production costs. The approach was bidirectional:

maintain (support, bug fixing, minor improvements) and further develop the platform with new features
re-engineer and adapt it for the telecommunications industry

Our development team took over the project from the initial crew. Due to a successful collaboration, we now provide the full life cycle development of the platform using Agile methodologies.

As for the second request, the team at Fortech works in an agile manner by using the parts of the scrum framework that work with the fixed price project model. The solution was created for the telecommunication industry by customizing the original one according to telecom-related requirements provided by the end client. The platform is now used by companies in Germany and the UK.

Hosted in an Azure Cloud Service, the application uses a Virtual Machine for the SQL Server instance. Fortech has both the staging and the production environment in Microsoft Azure and is using Azure Virtual Network to have them connected. The deployments are automated using a continuous integration software.

Client Benefits

Proactivity

Fortech implemented testing procedures and set a working methodology

Know-How

Ability to fix performance issues caused by the complex architecture of the project

Trust

A long-term collaboration between the software development team and the client.