How Much Does it Cost?

Question:

I have recently started working for a large plating job shop and have been tasked with updating our method for determining cost of plating. I am new to the area of electroplating and do not have a good understanding of the costing process. Can you give me any information or tips on where to get started? M. N.

Answer:

our question is a good one. Any modern plating operation requires a consistent process for determining costs for applying various finishes. Various companies have proprietary programs for doing this. Quite often these programs are set up as an Excel® spreadsheet. I have also seen programs based on DOS operating systems that do the job.

A good place to start is the Internet. If you go to www.pfonline.com and enter the search term “costing” you will come up with at least 30 links to various articles on the Products Finishing web site. A number of these articles discuss the various factors that must be included when developing a model for costing of plated finishes.

I am not aware of any commercial software that will do this for you. Perhaps our readers are aware of such software and can enlighten our readers about these programs.