Project Cost Savings

Optimumcut-1D v3 Product Development

Although Optimumcut-1D is far more than a simple linear material optimiser, our company strapline is still "Obtain the Maximum from a minimum". This desire to maximise the yield and reduce project costs is at the heart of all of our software. We have therefore always had a desire to quantify the real-world savings we help our customers achieve.

The latest version of Optimumcut-1D now attempts to solve this problem of quantifying the savings. After optimising a project, the estimated savings are displayed in the top-right corner of the results window along with the percentage saved on the projects' overall cost.

It is important to note that this number is only an estimate. We cannot possibly know how efficiently our customers would manually optimise their projects without the help of Optimumcut-1D.

To estimate the savings, Optimumcut-1D performs a second, very fast optimisation. This uses a very simple algorithm that could be calculated manually. The idea is that this is a fair estimate of what a competent employee could achieve without Optimumcut-1D. We can then use this to calculate the difference in project cost between our optimal solution and the manual solution.

This feature clearly provides added benefit to our users but we also wanted to share in that increased knowledge. After calculating the cost savings, Optimumcut-1D therefore sends the saving back to Optimumcut. For any customers concerned about privacy, this data is 100% anonymous and is treated as confidential. We send 3 raw pieces of data:

1. The 3 digit currency being used on the client PC, i.e. USD, GBP, AUD etc...
2. The project cost exactly as it appears beside the word "Cost:" in the above screenshot.
3. The saving exactly as it appears beside the word "Saving:" in the above screenshot.

Optimumcut does not track anything else about the data that is sent or where it is sent from. If you still feel you would not like this data sent to Optimumcut, the entire feature can be disabled via the Cost Savings configuration window.

This feature is available in Optimumcut-1D v3.5 and later.