For buyers. Desktop software: drawings, spend files and prices stay on your computer.
A supplier sends a price. Today the usual answer is last year's price less a few percent, or a cost breakdown the supplier filled in themselves. Diogenes builds the cost at your dock from the machine, the cycle, the material and public rates, so you can see which line has room in it.
Two made parts carry more than half of the parts cost: the LED board and the rear housing. The two bought battery cells are the biggest single line, and theirs is a market price you can check yourself. That tells you where a conversation with the supplier is worth having.
Each made part opens to its own machine, cycle and material. Rows are rounded to the cent; the total is the sum before rounding.
| Part | How it is made | Per light |
|---|---|---|
| Two 18650 battery cells | Bought in at market price | $3.30 |
| Screws and bolts | Bought in at market price | $0.03 |
| LED board | Circuit board, assembled | $2.82 |
| Rear housing | Die cast aluminium, machined | $2.73 |
| Front bezel | Injection moulded | $0.42 |
| Lens | Injection moulded | $0.34 |
| Stand | Sheet metal, cut and bent | $0.33 |
| Two thumb knobs | Injection moulded, $0.144 each | $0.29 |
| Parts total | $10.26 | |
Made in Mexico, the light costs $1.28 more to make than in China, and $1.62 less delivered to the US.
At 20,000 a year that is $32,400 on one product. Each country's bar is the same light, every made part and the assembly priced again on that country's wages, machine rates and energy, then shipped and dutied into the US.
Per light, US dollars, at the duty in force on the estimate date. Mexico enters duty-free under USMCA, assuming the light meets its rules of origin. Batteries and fasteners held at their bought price.
The housing from the home page, 500 a year in lots of 100, priced again in each country and delivered to the US.
| Made in | At the factory | Delivered |
|---|---|---|
| United Statesfreight $0.46, no duty | $18.96 | $19.42 |
| Chinafreight $1.62, duty $5.25 (77.5%) | $6.80 | $13.68 |
| Mexicofreight $4.42, duty $4.32 (50%) | $8.67 | $17.40 |
An all-aluminium part pays the 50% US aluminium tariff even from Mexico; from China it adds to the China tariffs. Mexico's freight includes $1.15 a part for the customs entry on each lot.
The usual reasons a price goes up each map to a line in Diogenes you can open, check and change, in front of the supplier if you like.
Material went up.See the metal or resin price it used, the index it came from and its date. Re-cost on this month's price.
The shop rate is higher than that.See the hourly rate a shop would quote for the job, and what is inside it. For the housing on the home page: $41/hr with a robot on two shifts, $83/hr with an operator at the machine, $92/hr on one shift. Ask which shop you are paying for.
The cycle is longer than you think.See the machine and the cycle split into roughing, finishing, holes, tool changes and moves.
The tooling costs more.See the mould or die, what it costs and how it spreads over your volume.
It has to be made here.Price it in another country and compare the landed cost, freight and duty included.
For a category review or a cost-down programme, the same engine runs across your spend.
Take a spend file: 300 parts, 3,600 invoice lines over three years, 14 suppliers. Diogenes imports it in about 1.4 s. The supplier index then shows how far each supplier's prices have moved since October 2023, weighted by what you spend with them, and how much of that is beyond the trend of the parts they make.
In machined parts, four suppliers moved with their category. Supplier C did not: +32% since October 2023, +21 pts beyond the category. Supplier C makes the sensor housing from the home page.
| SupplierSample | Price change | Beyond its category |
|---|---|---|
| Supplier A | +8% | -3 pts |
| Supplier B | +7% | -5 pts |
| Supplier C | +32% | +21 pts |
| Supplier D | +11% | 0 pts |
| Supplier E | +8% | -3 pts |
The spend file, the suppliers and the paid prices are made-up sample data. The should-cost line is the real housing, as Diogenes prices it.
Import a purchase-order export: every part is in, with its price history, by supplier and by category. Should-cost appears next to a part once it has a 3D file or typed specs, and you tell Diogenes once that the invoice part number and the costed part are the same part.
Diogenes works out the duty each part should carry from its HTS line and country, and lists where what you paid does not match.
The same check for the freight you are charged and for order sizes that push the unit price up. On the 3,600-line file, the index and each audit open in 1.0 s or less.
Print a one-page summary or a full dossier with the country comparison, ready for the supplier meeting.
Each estimate keeps its history, so you can see which input changed: metal, wages, energy, freight or duty.
Spend files, drawings and prices stay on your machine; it goes online just for public rate updates and part-number price lookups. Diogenes is installed software, not a website.
A 30-minute video call. Bring a drawing to show on screen, or describe the part in a few words. Nothing needs to be sent to me.
The sample is the housing from the home page, as the app exports it. Or write to me directly: [email protected]
I can tear down your product, cost every part in Diogenes and hand you the report: what each part should cost, how it is made, where its price comes from, and which suppliers are furthest from it. Then I help you build the negotiation plan: which parts to take up and in what order, what to ask each supplier, and the numbers to bring to the table.
Ask about a teardown and report