Cost Estimator Engineer

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West Point, MS, US

Salary Range: $80,000.00 To $90,000.00 Annually

The Manufacturing Cost Engineer develops manufacturing cost estimates for new business pursuits, engineering changes, and production programs. This position translates drawings, specifications, and statements of work into detailed labor, material, tooling, and outside-processing content, and prepares the supporting basis of estimate documentation required for government and prime contractor proposals. Based at the West Point manufacturing facility, the role works directly with manufacturing engineering, production, supply chain, and quality to build estimates that reflect how ND Defense will actually produce the part, and provides that cost content to Finance and Contracts for rate application and proposal assembly.

General Responsibilities

• Review customer drawings, models, specifications, statements of work, and RFQ packages to define the scope of work to be estimated, and identify missing or conflicting requirements before quoting.
• Develop detailed manufacturing cost estimates covering direct labor hours by operation, material and raw stock, purchased components, outside processing, tooling and fixturing, non-recurring engineering, and first article and qualification costs.
• Build and maintain routings, work center assignments, cycle times, setup times, and yield and scrap assumptions in coordination with manufacturing engineering; apply time study, MTM, or MOST-based labor standards where available and document the method used where standards do not yet exist.
• Validate estimating assumptions on the floor by observing actual operations, conducting time studies, and confirming with production supervision that assumed methods and manning are achievable at the quantities being quoted.
• Prepare written basis of estimate documentation that ties every element of cost to a source, whether historical actuals, quoted price, engineering judgment, or a published standard, in a form that will withstand customer and government review.
• Provide unburdened cost content and supporting detail to Finance and Contracts for application of approved rates, factors, and fee, and support their assembly of proposal cost volumes consistent with customer instructions and FAR 15.408 Table 15-2 requirements. Rate development, burden application, and pricing decisions remain with Finance and Contracts.
• Solicit and analyze supplier quotations with supply chain, evaluate make-versus-buy alternatives, and perform price and cost analysis to support supplier selection recommendations.
• Support fact-finding, audit requests, and negotiation by producing backup detail and written responses on the technical and labor content of the estimate.
• Maintain estimate records, cost history, and estimating templates so that prior estimates are traceable and reusable, and support the documentation practices expected of a compliant estimating system under DFARS .
• Perform variance analysis comparing estimated to actual cost on completed and in-process work, identify root causes of significant variances, and feed findings back into future estimates and labor standards.
• Support should-cost, value engineering, and cost reduction studies, including analysis of alternate materials, processes, tooling approaches, and production volumes.
• Develop estimates for engineering change proposals, requests for equitable adjustment, and production rate changes, including the effect on tooling, capacity, and learning curve position.
• Extract and analyze cost, routing, and production data from Infor LN and shop floor systems, and work with IT and manufacturing engineering to improve the accuracy of the underlying data.
• Present estimates and assumptions to internal leadership review, clearly identifying risk, contingency, and the ranges within which the estimate is valid.
• Contribute to capital justification and capacity analysis by providing cost and labor content for new equipment, new work, and facility decisions.
• Maintain the…