by : Thomas Cutler

R. Sebastian Schrader is a co-founder and Senior Process Specialist with aPriori Technologies, based in Concord, MA. aPriori (www.apriori.com) is the technology leader providing innovative cost management solutions to the discrete manufacturing industry.
As a doctoral candidate at the University of Illinois, Schrader was responsible for some of the seminal work that is the foundation of the aPriori cost management solution. Schrader holds a BS in Production Engineering from EAFIT University in Colombia and a MS in Manufacturing Engineering from the University of Illinois. While at UIUC, Sebastian worked at the John Deere Silvis Product Development Center as a Feature-Based Cost Specialist, analyzing cost data created with third-party costing packages and in-house costing techniques. Prior to UIUC, Schrader was a Research & Technical Staff member of the Interdisciplinary Research Center (IRC-CAD/CAM/CG) in Colombia, where he developed asynchronous tools for topology recovery, surface smoothing, and mesh optimization. Before working at IRC, Schrader was a joint owner of CAD-TEC Ltd where he worked as a consultant to firms in graphic design.

aPriori's Cost Management Software Platform enables manufacturers to better understand product cost decisions early and throughout the product lifecycle. aPriori's Cost Management Platform empowers manufacturers to lower cost-of-goods sold (COGS), provides real-time visibility to "cost-critical" decision information, and builds critical cost knowledge to go on the business "offensive." aPriori's patent-protected cost management platform allows companies to assess, control, and reduce cost of goods sold by whole percentages. The aPriori Platform truly enables "Cost Knowledge Before it Matters."