Product Cost Management for Manufacturers
Klean Cost is a product cost management consultancy. We turn your engineering BOM into a governed cost system — every line carrying a current cost and a target cost — then run the programs that close the gap and keep it closed. Evidence-led, quality-protected, and free of enterprise software commitments.
Our operating rule: we don't sell reports. We solve the problem in front of us, and we show our working.
The Problems We Solve
Cost problems rarely announce themselves. They arrive as questions in a monthly review — and stay unanswered because the evidence sits scattered across design, sourcing and operations. These are the ones we hear most.
Material indices move — but rarely by what the quote letter claims, and rarely across the whole part price. We separate genuine input inflation from opportunistic re-pricing.
We answer with an indexed cost model, not an opinion.The answer usually sits inside the two products, not the two price lists. Teardown comparison shows where their design spends less to do the same job.
We answer with side-by-side teardown evidence.Lowest price is not the same as right price — the cheapest quote often carries the highest total cost in rejections, delays and tooling surprises.
We answer with a should-cost range and a negotiation agenda.Yes — if you remove cost that isn't buying function. Value engineering separates what the customer pays for from what your history put there.
We answer with function-level cost analysis, quality protected.A target without a map produces across-the-board pressure and supplier fatigue. A costed BOM shows exactly which parts, processes and decisions hold the money.
We answer with a ranked, owner-assigned savings roadmap.Ideas die between the workshop and the drawing change. Savings need owners, validation gates and an executive review rhythm — the same discipline as any program.
We answer with governance that carries ideas to implementation.Industry Perspectives
A foundry-heavy valve maker, a tiered automotive supplier and a capital-equipment builder do not share the same cost problem — and should not be given the same answer. We work in the economics of your industry, in your language.
Tier-1 and Tier-2 suppliers under annual price-down commitments and raw-material pass-through disputes.
At automotive volumes, a single unit of currency removed from one part returns two hundred thousand to margin — every year, for the life of the program. In ₹, $ or €, the arithmetic is the same: volume turns small engineering decisions into large financial ones.
Typical engagement entry: one part family under customer price-down pressure.
Low-volume, high-mix builders where every machine's margin is decided by fabrication and bought-out choices.
On capital equipment, cost work compounds per unit sold. Recovering even a few percent of machine cost frequently doubles the contribution margin of a competitively bid order — in any market, in any currency.
Typical engagement entry: teardown-style review of one machine's costed BOM.
Flow-control and rotating-equipment makers whose cost sits in foundries, machine shops and material grades.
When casting quotes are tested against melt, yield and process economics, the gap between quoted and defensible cost routinely lands in this range — recoverable through negotiation or re-sourcing.
Typical engagement entry: should-cost on your five highest-spend castings.
Switchgear, panel and enclosure makers exposed to copper and steel volatility on thin integration margins.
When more than half the product is traded commodity, cost control is a pricing-mechanism problem as much as a design one. Indexation discipline alone often recovers several margin points.
Typical engagement entry: cost model for one panel family plus its supplier pricing mechanism.
Electrolysers, storage, EV infrastructure and other products racing down a cost curve to reach viable unit economics.
Our founding team led a clean-energy platform's BOM down 30% through governed, gate-tracked cost projects — the difference between a subsidised product and a commercially viable one.
Typical engagement entry: cost baseline and target deployment for one product platform.
Machine shops, fabricators and EMS providers whose growth depends on quoting fast, winning right and protecting margin.
A disciplined cost engine changes the commercial position twice: faster quotes win time-sensitive orders, and a known cost floor stops the discounting that silently erodes shop margin.
Typical engagement entry: cost-model build for your top recurring part families.
What We Do
Product Cost Management is the operating system; should-costing, teardown, value engineering and program execution are the engines inside it. Most clients enter through a single part or quote and expand as the evidence accumulates.
We take ownership of your engineering BOM as a living cost system. Every line carries two numbers — what it costs today and what it must cost — kept current as engineering changes, supplier quotes and material indices move. On top of that baseline we deploy targets to owners, run the cost-reduction programs that close each gap, and forecast your cost roadmap quarter by quarter, so leadership always knows where product cost is heading, not just where it has been.
You receive: a governed, always-current costed BOM with current and target cost on every line, a forward cost forecast tied to your roadmap, and a monthly governance review reporting movement against target.
We build the cost of a part from first principles — material, process route, cycle time, labour, machine rates, overheads, tooling and a fair margin — so you know what a quote should be before you receive it. Every assumption is documented and traceable; nothing arrives from a black box.
You receive: a defensible cost range, a driver-level gap analysis against quotes, and a negotiation agenda your buyers can walk in with.
Physical evidence beats assumption. We disassemble your product, a supplier's, or a competitor's — and document the design, material, joining, assembly and manufacturability choices that explain cost and quality differences drawing by drawing.
You receive: a benchmark gap report and a prioritised list of design and sourcing actions, each with an engineering rationale.
We ask the discipline's oldest question — what does this part do, and what is that function worth? — across your product with your cross-functional team. Cost that isn't buying function becomes the target; performance, safety and manufacturability are constraints, never trades.
You receive: function-cost analysis, ranked redesign opportunities, and workshop-validated business cases ready for engineering change.
Savings ideas fail in the gap between the workshop and the drawing change. We run the execution engine: each project tracked through maturity gates from idea to validation to implemented change, engineering-change support through release, and analytics dashboards that report money, not activity — distinguishing identified, approved and realised at every review.
You receive: a gated savings portfolio, ECN support through implementation, and executive dashboards reporting validated impact against the PCM baseline.
How We Prove Cost
This is the artefact at the centre of our work: a cost built from engineering first principles, set against the quote, with the gap decomposed into causes you can act on. It reads like a ledger because it is one — modelled in whichever currency your business runs on.
| Cost element | Cost / part¹ | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Direct material0.42 kg net + machining allowance, scrap credit applied | 198 | 22% |
| Primary machiningVMC, 14.0 min effective cycle at 1,150 / machine-hour | 268 | 30% |
| Secondary operations & finishingDeburr, wash, anodise (conversion cost) | 74 | 8% |
| Direct labour & inspectionLoading, in-process checks, final inspection | 52 | 6% |
| Factory overheads & SG&AApplied on conversion base, plant-size adjusted | 161 | 18% |
| Tooling & fixturing amortisationDedicated fixtures over contracted volume | 38 | 4% |
| Fair supplier margin12% on cost — sustainable, not squeezed | 95 | 11% |
| Engineering should-cost | 886 | 100% |
| Supplier quote, as received | 1,240 | — |
| Gap to explain — the negotiation agenda | 354 | 29% |
A gap is a set of questions, not an accusation. Some of it is supplier margin; some is your design; some is a process assumption worth testing together. Good suppliers engage with this analysis — it makes the relationship more durable, not less.
Negotiate what pricing should concede. Re-engineer what design should release. Re-source only where the incumbent cannot close. The ledger tells you which lever each unit of cost belongs to.
The same discipline, applied across your bill of materials, becomes Product Cost Management — every line with a current and target cost, a ranked savings pipeline with owners and gates, and a monthly number your CFO can audit.
How an Engagement Runs
No retainers before results. Each phase produces a standalone deliverable; you decide whether the evidence justifies continuing.
Bring us one part, one quote, or one product's BOM. We map where the money sits, test it against engineering cost logic, and identify the three levers most worth pulling.
We execute the highest-value lever end to end — a should-cost negotiation pack, a teardown benchmark, or a value-engineering workshop — and validate the result with your engineering and quality teams.
We install cost management as an operating discipline: baselines, deployed targets, maturity-gated projects, engineering-change support, and an executive review that tracks realised savings.
On confidentiality: NDAs are executed before any drawing, BOM or quote is reviewed. Client engineering data is processed in our isolated environment — it is never uploaded to public AI tools, and it never trains anything.
The Firm
Klean Cost was founded on a simple observation: most manufacturers don't lack cost-reduction ideas — they lack the evidence, discipline and follow-through to convert them into margin. We built the firm to supply exactly that.
Every engagement begins with a written problem statement — never a service catalogue. If the problem changes mid-engagement, so does our work.
Recommendations rest on models, teardowns and data you can audit. If we can't show the working, we don't make the claim.
We count validated, implemented impact — not workshop estimates. Our reporting distinguishes identified, approved and realised, and we stay for the last mile.
Cost taken out at the expense of function, reliability or safety comes back with interest. Every action carries a quality gate.
Isolated processing, no public AI tools, no third-party sharing, NDA before first drawing. Technology accelerates our analysis; it never touches your confidentiality.
Twelve years leading cost and value engineering across aerospace and clean energy — from should-cost and clean-sheet programs at a global aerospace OEM to a 30% platform cost-down at a clean-energy manufacturer. Selected for a top-3% global leadership program and elected its global chairperson.
A decade in enterprise technology, focused on building the secure analytical machinery behind the firm's work: proprietary cost models, commodity engines and leadership dashboards — engineered for speed, transparency and complete data isolation.
Start Here
One part under margin pressure. One quote that doesn't feel right. One product losing on price. Send it across — we'll respond within two working days with how we'd approach it, what it would cost, and what you'd have in hand at the end.