Many small and medium sized companies base their business strategy on their manufacturing processes. They are highly specialized in areas such as: die-casting, extrusion, machining, sintering, injection molding etc. The specialization is usually also focused on a limited number of material and alloys for the manufacturing process in question. These companies are commonly acting as subcontractors to other companies, original equipment manufacturers (OEMs). For the OEMs to be able to provide affordable products in a short tune and to be at the competitive edge, every new design must be adapted to existing production facilities. In order to ensure this, collaboration between engineering design, at the OEM, and production engineering, at the subcontractors, has to be supported. With the dispersed organizations of today and the increasing amount of information that has to be shared and managed in the product realization process, this collaboration is a critical issue for many companies. A more intense collaboration is sought by many subcontractors as it will strengthen the business relation. To provide manufacturing knowledge and to be a partner in the product realization process is a means to outplay competitors. The purpose of this work is to investigate, explore, and develop a computerized method, i.e. an application system, to support the process planning and cost estimation in the quotation process. The main objective is to reveal concepts and principles to support application system development and utilization. The results are based on the experiences from a case study at a subcontractor of turned components.
