Department

The Cost Estimation Department within Finance is responsible for reporting forecasts of product cost, which are impacted by product innovations. This reporting covers a set of reference vehicles. The main focus is on the impact of product development on future trucks of DAF. Additionally, the effects of engineering maintenance on current products, as well as external economic influences such as raw material commodities, commercial conditions, and labor rates, are tracked to anticipate their overall impact on the forecasted future cost price.

A cost price report is created by extracting Bill of Material data, including costs, from current production and, if available, trial builds of future production. This data is reviewed, corrected, and supplemented with information from estimates and quotes to establish the most accurate forecast possible. The forecast information is consolidated and presented through multiple cross-sections in a standardized report, providing updates on the current status, the delta compared to the previous report, the risks, and the opportunities across three different time frames: present, near future, and long-term.

The source of the current production data is the Mainframe. Virtual order calculations are imported into the data warehouse Snowflake. Using Sigma, this data is extracted from the database and formatted into a working file in Excel. To facilitate review and analysis, a set of pivot tables is made available to each reviewer in a personal file, with customized views linked to the central working file.