At most hardware companies, this is the starting point. As in, a flat multiple is the baseline, before S&M and other overheard costs are re-integrated by Finance into product cost.
Indeed. Same thing when I was a hardware engineer. However, I think the GP loves it due to the use of Pi and 'e' as the constants. We used 3 I seem to remember, but we included some amount for assembly and test, which I bet would come close to Pi.