FOR HYDRAULICS AND PNEUMATICS
A hydraulic cylinder quote mixes honed tube, chrome rod, seal kits, machining, welding, assembly and a pressure test. Most of that sits in one estimator's spreadsheet. Kojo puts your rates and costing rules into one system, so every cylinder, manifold block or fitting is priced the same way and tracked through the floor to payment.
HOW THE WORK IS PRICED
A hydraulic cylinder is priced from its bore, rod diameter and stroke. Bought-in material is a large share of the cost: honed or skived and roller-burnished tube, induction-hardened chrome-plated rod, the seal kit, end caps and mountings such as clevis, flange or trunnion. Tube and rod cost grows with stroke, while turning the gland, piston and end caps stays roughly fixed for a given bore. Welding of the base and port bosses, assembly, pressure testing and painting complete the price. Pneumatic cylinders follow the same logic, usually with aluminium profile barrels and anodising.
Manifold blocks and valve bodies are mostly machine hours. Cost comes from the block material, deep and cross drilling for the galleries, cavities for cartridge valves cut with form tools, ports in BSP, SAE or metric threads, deburring where drillings meet, and a leak or pressure test. Fittings and adaptors are the opposite: high-volume turned parts from free-cutting steel, brass or stainless bar, priced per piece on bar cost, cycle time and plating. In every case the buyer usually wants a quick price on several variants, often a machine builder comparing more than one supplier.
THE HEADACHES
Bore, stroke, rod, mounting and seals change with each enquiry, so the estimator rebuilds the cost from scratch. Two people often arrive at two different prices.
Tube, chrome rod and seal kit prices change with steel prices and suppliers. An old figure left in the spreadsheet eats the margin without anyone noticing.
Cross-drilled galleries, cartridge cavities and dozens of ports make machining time hard to estimate. Usually only one senior person knows how long a block really takes.
A cylinder or block that fails the pressure test goes back for strip-down and rework after all the cost is in. Without a record, nobody knows which part or process keeps causing it.
THE WORKFLOW
The buyer sends a drawing or a spec: bore, rod, stroke, working pressure, mountings, ports and seals, or a hydraulic circuit for a manifold.
Price tube, rod, seals and other bought-out items, then machining, welding, assembly, testing and painting, and add margin. Machine builders often want several variants priced together.
The buyer approves the general arrangement drawing. Tube, chrome bar, seal kits and blocks are ordered or drawn from stock.
Glands, pistons, end caps and rod ends are turned, ports are drilled and bosses welded. Manifold blocks are drilled, machined and deburred.
Parts are cleaned and assembled with seals, pressure tested and painted. Test results are recorded for the customer.
Dispatch with the test report and invoice, then follow up on payment and on later spares and seal kit orders.
WHERE KOJO FITS
COMMERCIAL
LIVEPick the customer and part, and Kojo fills in the quote: tube, rod and block prices from the raw-material price master, and welding, assembly and testing from your own rates and costing rules, set up during onboarding. The PDF quote is ready in minutes.
Explore module →COMMERCIAL
LIVECaptures how your senior estimator judges manifold blocks, glands and pistons: cycle times per operation, machine hour rates and setup allowances. Kojo applies them the same way on every job.
Explore module →OPERATIONS
ROLLING OUTDefine each cylinder's bill of materials once: tube, rod, seal kit, end caps, piston, gland and mountings. Kojo shows the true part cost at today's material prices and the consumption variance against standard.
Explore module →OPERATIONS
ROLLING OUTTracks tube, chrome rod, seal kits, O-rings and other consumables against real usage. It warns at the reorder point, rounded up to the supplier's minimum order quantity.
Explore module →COMMERCIAL
ROLLING OUTEvery quote sent gets an automatic follow-up schedule by email and WhatsApp, so variant quotes for machine builders don't go quiet.
Explore module →OPERATIONS
ROLLING OUTOperators log production, rejects, downtime and raw material for each shift on a tablet with big buttons, so test-bench rejects are on record. It works offline and syncs.
Explore module →STARTER TO ENTERPRISE
Start with quoting, add production, inventory and payments, then scale across plants with integrations and a dedicated support team.
STARTER
Start with quoting. Your material prices, machining rates and assembly and test costs go into Kojo, so every cylinder, block or fitting is priced the same way, with a follow-up on every quote.
GROWTH
Add BOM costing and inventory to keep tube, rod and seal kit costs and stock in check, then shop-floor logging to see production and rejects as they happen.
ENTERPRISE
For makers with separate machining and assembly plants, Enterprise adds multi-plant roll-up reporting, an open API and integrations for accounting and ERP systems, a dedicated support team and an uptime SLA.
NUMBERS TO WATCH
QUOTE TURNAROUND TIME
Machine builders compare several suppliers, and a slow quote often loses the order before price is even discussed.QUOTE WIN RATE
Shows whether your prices are in line with the market and whether quotes are being followed up.MATERIAL SHARE OF SELLING PRICE
If tube, rod and seal costs creep up as a share of price, your rates are lagging supplier prices.FIRST-PASS TEST YIELD
Every unit that fails the pressure test costs strip-down, new seals and bench time all over again.COMMON MATERIALS
Each material page has properties, equivalent grades and a free weight and machining cost calculator.
QUESTIONS
Kojo prices each cylinder from your own rates and costing rules, set up with Kiviro during onboarding: material from the raw-material price master, machining from your estimator's cycle times and rates, and your own assembly and test costs. It doesn't come with a ready-made cylinder calculator; it applies your method the same way every time.
Yes. The inventory module tracks raw material and consumables against real usage and warns at the reorder point, rounded up to the supplier's minimum order quantity.
You own your data and can export it on any plan. Enterprise adds integrations and an open API for accounting and ERP systems.
Book a free 30-minute visit. We'll run one of your real jobs through Kojo on the spot. Outside India? We'll do it on a video call.
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