project estimation

hi everyone

i am abot to begin a upgrade project on a medical check valve assembly machine . basically design and build new controls and control cabinet . write new plc program from scratch and add much needed features to this machine it performs about 12 operations to the part it is a dial index table setup . my question is my boss wants a estimation of time . could someone give a general idea as to how long each part of this process could take . prints , spec and order components , build control panel , write plc and hmi program , debug

First, list all tasks.
Next, assign times to these tasks.
Finally, add the times together and its done.

I generally use MS project to help me with this task, since this will allow you to show series and parallel tasks, assign tasks to others etc.

The accuracy of your original estimates will determine how close this is to your actual time taken. Dont forget to count weekends, public holidays etc. Get all your estimates checked by someone else, preferably the person doing the job. If you are doing all the jobs, then find someone else to check your estimates.