CONSTANTS

Constants are the key to making catalogs that are site independent. By simply varying a machine constant the cutting time for ALL parts can be immediately modified. Even thought the part time is never dealt with separately its time can be dynamically calculated from its area*time_per_sqft.

How do we do this?

1. Lets say you cut ~60 sheets per day (1-1/2 lifts) and a day has 7.5 hours

2. Then time_cutting = 7.5/(60*32) = .0039 hrs/sqft

3. The cutting time in the catalog is entered as a function of area instead of absolute time so that the estimator is able to apply a part with actual width and height to automatically receive cutting time. Thus behind the scenes when a part 24x36 is required within the context of a product the following happens:

a. 24*36/144=6 sqft.

b. 6 sqft * .0039 hrs/sqft = .0234 hours (1.4 minutes)