Hello and welcome to the Society of Cost Engineers from the Owner and Founder Jerry Collins. If you’ve read the Founders Bio’s you already know a bit about the three of us, so I’ll try not to bore you too much.
This journey officially started for me in 2003 when I became a member of the first team Delphi Automotive put together to do Cost Management through Should Cost Modeling. I quickly noticed that there was no agreement amongst our team and across the industry. The team would hold quarterly group meetings that would inevitably transgress into long debates on what is in SG&A, what’s in Indirect, how and where are they applied. Should we be doing “SUPPLIER SPECIFIC” models or “BENCHMARK” models? What’s the best method / software to use and why? How do we actually save the company money based on all this work when we don’t have negotiation authority?
Fast forward to 2014, I took a job at a large medical / consumer / pharma company who wanted to start a cost modeling group. The process started all over again, only this time I was pretty much on my own. It became painfully obvious that there was still confusion and no standardization within the Cost Engineering community. Even worse, I would learn very quickly, the term Cost Engineer really is misunderstood.
In 2014 I decided enough was enough and bought the webpage www.societyofcostengineers.com. Not being a web developer, I did my best, but I had a vision. The vision is to finally set standards and get the discipline recognized.
So here we are in 2020. I’m on the verge of retiring from that large medical / consumer / pharma company and ready to dedicate more time to this endeavor. I added two members to my team, Leo and Jeff. Leo is a long-time colleague that has been doing Cost Engineering for nearly as long as I have. Jeff brings the sales perspective. It will be great exposure for our members to get a feel of what sales professionals know and do daily to get the best prices for their perspective companies.
In closing, welcome, we need all of us to pull together to gain the strength in numbers and get us represented and get the respect we so deserve.
Thanks,
Gerald (Jerry) Collins
Owner and Founder Society of Cost Engineers
This journey officially started for me in 2003 when I became a member of the first team Delphi Automotive put together to do Cost Management through Should Cost Modeling. I quickly noticed that there was no agreement amongst our team and across the industry. The team would hold quarterly group meetings that would inevitably transgress into long debates on what is in SG&A, what’s in Indirect, how and where are they applied. Should we be doing “SUPPLIER SPECIFIC” models or “BENCHMARK” models? What’s the best method / software to use and why? How do we actually save the company money based on all this work when we don’t have negotiation authority?
Fast forward to 2014, I took a job at a large medical / consumer / pharma company who wanted to start a cost modeling group. The process started all over again, only this time I was pretty much on my own. It became painfully obvious that there was still confusion and no standardization within the Cost Engineering community. Even worse, I would learn very quickly, the term Cost Engineer really is misunderstood.
In 2014 I decided enough was enough and bought the webpage www.societyofcostengineers.com. Not being a web developer, I did my best, but I had a vision. The vision is to finally set standards and get the discipline recognized.
So here we are in 2020. I’m on the verge of retiring from that large medical / consumer / pharma company and ready to dedicate more time to this endeavor. I added two members to my team, Leo and Jeff. Leo is a long-time colleague that has been doing Cost Engineering for nearly as long as I have. Jeff brings the sales perspective. It will be great exposure for our members to get a feel of what sales professionals know and do daily to get the best prices for their perspective companies.
In closing, welcome, we need all of us to pull together to gain the strength in numbers and get us represented and get the respect we so deserve.
Thanks,
Gerald (Jerry) Collins
Owner and Founder Society of Cost Engineers
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