How to estimate cost of material from AFX model

Totally possible with Excel and Nitro-CELL. (common use case).

Basically, this is how it works… (notional example - there may be an extra consideration or two given AFX)

Use Nitro-CELL to create an Excel Workbook.

Create an empty Excel Table to catch the part data you need

worksheet : TABLE_CREATE → partListTbl

Extract Parts from Creo Assembly to Excel Table (to get the list of items in the design)

tbl_model : REPORT_ITEM_CNT → partListTbl

OR, IF you have parameters with each model that define the Material, Height, Width, Length of each item you just include them in the request.

model : REPORT_ITEM_CNT_PARAMS material, height, width, length → partListTbl 

Once you have those exported.. you just need to merge the exported Creo Data to Excel with your Raw Materials and Cut-Length Data for costing… (typically this is in hand or in your ERP) - you just have to get it into an Excel Table (copy/paste or connect to an external data source or CSV file)

Now for the magic.  PowerQuery in Excel can automate the merging and cost estimation of your data.

Use PowerQuery to merge your exported Creo Part Data with your Raw Materials Data (probably on material, size, length) to get your costs per item.  Then you can group and rollup the results.

Best part - if you change your design, just re-run the Nitro-CELL automation and you can have the PowerQuery run to generate new cost data every time.

You can try this for FREE - just download the software and give it a go (required JLINK to be installed with Creo Parametric, and we do recommend the Add-on for Excel to streamline the navigation of NItro-CELL Commands).

Let me know if you need help.

Dave