He conducts research in the areas of micro-miniature systems, design for manufacture and assembly, rapid prototyping and layered manufacturing, computer integrated manufacture (CIM), and robotics and automation. Dr. Philpott is one of the world's foremost authorities in the areas of Design-to-Cost, Design-for-Manufacture, and Design-for-Assembly. He directed the research on process cost modeling and the development of the aPriori software at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign since 1993. He is founder and Chief Scientific Officer of aPriori.