During contract negotiation, AEG can act as a facilitator between the two parties or work behind the scenes in an advisory capacity. In either role, our involvement in contract negotiation includes helping achieve the lowest possible pricing at which the contract manufacturer can make reasonable and acceptable profit given the client’s requirements – a "win-win" business relationship.

Contract Manufacturing Consultants has developed a cost and pricing model that can be of considerable benefit throughout the engagement. This model can be used to reliably estimate printed circuit board assembly and systems assembly conversion cost and pricing. It is activity-based and utilizes data inputs of the client's own product, process and support requirements. It incorporates individual printed circuit board production processes and infrastructure costs for varying delivery systems, i.e. high mix/low volume, mid-volume and high volume production facilities.

The AEG model can answer a wide variety of what-if questions such as how costs might shift with changes in volume, mix or delivery system. It can also be used to assess the reasonableness of contract manufacturer pricing proposals and longer-term pricing viability. Since the model incorporates labor and other infrastructure costs for key contract manufacturing regions worldwide, it readily provides estimates of comparable conversion costs and likely pricing in countries such as India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Korea, China and Thailand.