Credit the ideas.
Show the limits.

Axiocost is an independent Senoni product initiative. Our contribution is the working method, implementation and testing—not invention of established cost engineering.

What the demonstration actually does

The public demo uses pre-entered synthetic specifications and offers. JavaScript performs tested calculations in the browser. It has no AI call, drawing extraction, CAD parser, upload endpoint or customer database. The same declared arithmetic is implemented in a Python reference supplied with the working-method pack.

The quote total adds recurring unit price and additional freight at the chosen quantity, plus separately charged one-time tooling. A comparison is withheld when revision, quantity band, validity, currency, delivery scope or relevant charges do not satisfy the declared contract. This is not a full total-cost-of-ownership model.

A separate one-stage molding scenario illustrates mass, expected shots, running hours, setups, labor and capacity. It excludes regrind, salvage, multistage rejects, taxes, financing and many plant-specific consequences. Its parameters are invented, not industrial reference data. The schematic is not a fabrication drawing or a basis for estimating cycle time.

Published work that informs our approach

The following references were selectively inspected for the method. They are not endorsements of Senoni or Axiocost. No original publications, illustrations or source-course exercises are redistributed.

• UK Cabinet Office — Should Cost Modelling guidance, tools and templates. Scope, assumptions, model construction and review discipline. Public-procurement context remains distinct from this industrial prototype.
• US Government Accountability Office — Cost Estimating and Assessment Guide. The official overview supports the high-level estimating steps. We do not claim a complete review of the full handbook.
• Robert S. Kaplan and Steven R. Anderson — Time-Driven Activity-Based Costing. Selected capacity and activity-time sections inform the distinction between supplied resources and their use; our molding calculator is not their full method.
• Ken Garrett / ACCA — Target costing and life-cycle costing. Distinguishing a target, current costs and lifecycle consequences.
• Protolabs — Injection mold cost guidance. Qualitative manufacturing context, not a transferable rate database or independent benchmark.
• Peter Kajüter and Harri Kulmala — Open-book accounting in networks. Abstract-level evidence that transparency has enabling conditions and failure modes; no claim to have inspected the full empirical study.

The wider method behind the website

The Cost & Value Engineering pack is published in Senoni’s Ways of Working library. At the time of writing (9 October 2026), its method version is 0.3.2. It is broader than this website:

• Written guidance on requesting structured cost breakdowns, reading them as conventions rather than a unique truth, threshold and volume effects, cost-reduction levers with their owners and evidence, price-change requests and negotiation preparation.
• A local synthetic reference in Python: the declared-scope quote arithmetic used by this demo, and a workflow harness that replays one fictional request through routing, offer evaluation, a typed buyer correction, a revised decision packet and a simulated handoff, including timeout, expired-quote, stale-approval, missing-information, engineering-review and existing-contract cases.

The buyer decision journey on this website displays one recording of that harness, produced by the pack’s export script; the page recalculates nothing. The workflow reference itself does not run on this website and connects to no real system. Its tests show that the published rules are implementable and self-consistent on synthetic data—not that any procurement system behaves this way, that a connector would be correct, or that a customer would gain value. The method version, the reference arithmetic schema and this demo’s v0.1.0 are numbered independently.

The purchasing additions in versions 0.2.0 to 0.3.2 are Senoni syntheses and designs, written in original wording; they are not attributed to the authors listed above. To describe the surrounding software landscape, the pack also cites vendor product pages about intake, routing, approval and sourcing automation, added in version 0.3.0. Those are vendor-reported capabilities only: no product was used or tested, none is an Axiocost partner, and they are not evidence of any integration. See the pack’s source register for inspection limits.

What remains to establish

No industrial accuracy, realized savings, customer adoption or productivity improvement is claimed. New authorized cases and qualified manufacturing review are needed. The next private prototype step is source-linked document interpretation with human confirmation and explicit data-handling arrangements. Where a customer already automates part of the process, value has to be measured against that process, including engineering and finance effort.

How this relates to Ways of Working

Senoni's Ways of Working library translates selected published ideas into practical guidance for AI-assisted teams. Its separate Carey Chou-inspired and Nicolas Vandeput/SupChains-based packs keep their own attribution and subject matter. They did not author this costing demonstration or the Cost & Value Engineering pack, and no affiliation or endorsement is implied.

The methodology library is public; the product site remains a separate Senoni property.

Data and permissions

Do not submit confidential drawings or supplier offers through ordinary public contact channels without agreeing an appropriate sharing route. Citation does not grant reuse rights. Customer records, licensed reference data and product-model configurations require their own permissions and controls.

Source inspection and demo version: 8 October 2026 · v0.1.0. Method reference checked 9 October 2026: Cost & Value Engineering 0.3.2; the buyer decision journey is recorded from its workflow schema 0.2.0. Axiocost remains a working brand; no trademark-clearance claim is made.