white paper increase your quoting capacity and sales ...€¦ · accurate estimates of what your...

WHITE PAPER

INCREASE YOUR QUOTING CAPACITY AND SALES OPPORTUNITIES WITH AUTOMATED QUOTING

A Guide for Manufacturers / Sheet Metal Fabricators

http://www.ldcglobal.com/

WHITE PAPER INCREASE YOUR QUOTING CAPACITY AND SALES OPPORTUNITIES WITH AUTOMATED QUOTING

Table of Contents

Introduction …………………………………….……………………………………………..…………..………….. 03 Is Your Company Overwhelmed with Quoting? AUTOMATED QUOTING: The Next Step in Revolutionizing Your Business Operations Increase Quoting Capacity Quantifying Existing Quoting Processes Opportunities to Improve the Quoting Process

Common Quoting Challenges ………………….……………………………….……………..………………….. 04 High Volume of Request for Quotes (RFQ) / Shorter Due Dates Manual Analysis of Customer Part Drawings / Specifications Hard to Maintain Quoting Spreadsheets Gathering / Generating Up-to-Date Quoting Costs Selection of Optimal Manufacturing Processes for Quote Costs Variety of Options by Customer Quoting Reliant on Tribal Knowledge

Common Quoting Steps ………………….…………………………..…………………………………………….. 05 Organize / Store RFQ Information Customer Part Analysis Determine Routing Steps / Time / Costs Calculate Material / Vendor Costs Generate Part Bill of Materials Configure / Generate Sales Drawings Sales Quote Approval Integrate Quote Data with ERP / CRM

Automated Quoting Stages …………………..…….…….……...………………………………..……………….. 06 Analysis Quoting Stage Configuration Quoting Stage Integration Quoting Stage

Analysis Quoting Stage ………………………..……..…………………………………………………………….. 07 Incoming Information Processing Automated Customer Parts Analysis

Configuration Quoting Stage …………..……………………….………………………………………………….. 08 Quote Configuration Engine Automated Routings / Cost Rollups / Quote Generation

Integration Quoting Stage ………….…..……………………………………………………….………………….. 09 ERP / CRM / Business System Integration

Results / Quote Calculator ………….…..…………………………………..…………………..………………….. 10 Return On Investment Quote Calculator

Summary ……………………….…..….…..……………………………….………………………………………….. 11 Global Edge Automated Quoting Global Edge Software Suite



INTRODUCTION

Is Your Company Overwhelmed with Quoting?

As manufacturing becomes more competitive with global pricing pressures, vendor suppliers are becoming overwhelmed with Request for Quotes (RFQs). In addition to a high volume of RFQs, manufacturers are also forced with the challenge of delivering fast, accurate sales quotes. This white paper focuses on the steps that can be taken to enhance and supplement your existing quoting process with innovative procedures and software technology with the goal of increasing sales opportunities and profitability.

AUTOMATED QUOTING: The Next Step in Revolutionizing Your Business Operations

You’ve updated your shop floor with automation. You have state of the art machine tools. You can quickly respond to customer manufacturing requirements. Your ERP/MES system schedules and tracks production and accurately analyzes costs. You have a state of the art modern efficient manufacturing facility, but so do many of your competitors. Customers have easier ways to generate RFQs and they send them out to more vendors than ever before. They want quality products at the lowest cost. They require fast turnaround with both quotes and delivery time. Your production facility can handle the requirements. Do you miss out on orders because your quoting department can’t handle the volume of RFQs quickly and accurately enough? You’ve invested heavily in expensive production capabilities. Are you keeping your shop floor as busy as it could be?

Increase Your Quoting Capacity

The technology for bringing quoting up to speed matching your production capabilities is now available. This paper will take you through the common

challenges manufacturers go through quoting and how the steps can be sped up and improved with tools that automate the quoting process. So how do you transform quoting into a modern efficient process rivaling the improvements you have done in other departments? You start by understanding the bottlenecks that are holding you back. That is followed by looking at viable solutions now available on the market for addressing your pain points.

Quantifying Your Existing Quoting Processes

It’s not unusual for businesses to know how long non-manufacturing processes take. It isn’t usually analyzed with the same rigor manufacturing processes are. Logic Design Corporation has a free spreadsheet-based tool that allows you to analyze and quantify the unique quoting process that has evolved in your company over the years as your manufacturing capabilities have evolved into what you have today. The quote calculator lets you define your existing quoting steps and create accurate estimates of what your current processes look like. This clearly identifies where there is room for improvement.

Opportunities to Improve Your Quoting Process

Manufacturers of all types have varied quoting challenges, but often follow a common theme. It takes time to organize and analyze incoming data included with RFQs. The more complicated and varied the products you are asked to quote on, normally the longer it takes you to produce an accurate sales quote. If knowledge on processes are unique to individual quoters, it’s more likely quotes will be delayed, and opportunities lost. Lack of up-to-date costs integrated into the quoting process can reduce the profitability of jobs you close on and reduce the chances of landing others. These common issues and others along with potential solutions are the focus of this paper.



COMMON QUOTING CHALLENGES

In order to incorporate steps to improve the quoting process, the first step in the process is to understand the common quoting challenges experienced by manufacturing companies and what are the potential improvement areas:

High Volume of Request for Quotes (RFQ) / Shorter Due Dates

Manual Analysis of Customer Part Drawings / Specifications

Hard to Maintain Quoting Spreadsheets Gathering / Generating Up-to-Date Quoting

Costs Selection of Optimal Manufacturing Processes

for Quote Costs Variety of Options Requested by Customer Quoting Reliant on Tribal Knowledge

High Volume of Request for Quotes (RFQ) / Shorter Due Dates – As the volume of RFQs increase, and with tight due dates, manufacturers face a double edge sword of meeting quote requests at the expense of producing inaccurate sales quotes that either cost a manufacturer money or lose out on winning profitable business opportunities.

Manual Analysis of Customer Part Drawings / Specifications – One of the main constraints of generating fast and accurate sales quotes is the manual analysis of incoming customer drawings and related specifications. This information generally includes the following formats:

o RFQ Data / Specifications o 3D CAD Models o DXF Flat Patterns o Drawing PDFs

Hard to Maintain Quoting Spreadsheets – Many manufacturers depend on spreadsheets for their estimating of sales quotes. These spreadsheets over time grow in complexity and become harder to maintain as product requirements change. The biggest challenge with spreadsheets is that they are normally a set of unconnected databases.

Gathering / Generating Up-to-Date Quoting Costs – When the quoting process is a combination of spreadsheets, homegrown software applications, quoting systems with limited capabilities and tribal quoting knowledge; it becomes more difficult to gather and generate accurate time and material cost rollups.

Selecting Optimal Manufacturing Processes for Quote Costs – A significant quoting challenge for manufacturers is determining the optimal manufacturing steps for products based on various part parameters. This includes determining at the quoting level whether it’s more cost effective to turret punch or laser cut a sheet metal part based on either cost and/or delivery dates. The same holds true for processes like press brake versus panel bending.

Wide Variety of Options Requested by Customer – The request of non-standard and configurable products normally adds a significant quoting challenge and makes quoting more labor intensive.

Quoting Reliant on Tribal Knowledge – Normally the number one reliance of quoting is tribal quoting knowledge which comes from key personnel within a business. Dependency on key personnel typically becomes more taxing as the quoting workload increases.



COMMON QUOTING STEPS

When it comes to the quoting of fabricated sheet metal parts, there are common steps involved in the process that typically include:

1. Organize / Store RFQ Information 2. Customer Part Analysis 3. Determine Routing Steps / Time / Costs 4. Calculate Material / Vendor Costs 5. Generate Part Bill of Materials 6. Configure / Generate Sales Drawings 7. Sales Quote Approval 8. Integrate Quote Data with ERP / CRM

Organize / Store RFQ Information – The starting point of the quoting process is the receipt request for quote information (RFQ) which can include drawings in various formats (hard copy, CAD files, PDF files, etc.). With a high volume of RFQs, it becomes time consuming to organize, sort through and store information and prepare it for the quoting process.

Customer Part Analysis – A key quoting challenge for sheet metal fabricators is the analysis of customer parts in order to determine the optimal route to fabricate and cost each sheet metal part. This normally entails a manual labor intensive process to determine necessary part parameters to accurately quote the part (part size, perimeter length, cutout perimeter length, hole counts, cutout types, bend counts, material and thickness, etc.).

Determine Routing Steps / Time / Costs – Once the part parameters are determined, the normal next step is to determine the routing steps based on those parameters. Many times these routing steps are based on tribal knowledge of key personnel. This process is coupled with then determining machine tool times for each routing process and applying costs to those times based on part quantities.

Calculate Material / Vendor Costs – The routing determination process is followed with having to calculate material costs and the calculation of vendor costs for outside services that need to be rolled up into the quoted part cost.

Generate Part Bill of Materials – With many fabricated sheet metal parts, there are a list of components for those parts that can include items such hardware and packaging that need to be factored into quoted part cost.

Configure / Generate Sales Quote Drawings – With products such as made to order parts or configurable sheet metal cabinets and enclosures, a customer may require a drawing of the quoted part / product. Without an automated method to perform these drawing generation tasks, considerable time can be added to the quoting process.

Sales Quote Approval – A common quoting step with many parts / products involves the approval of the appropriate personnel which can delay the quoting process if these people are not readily available.

Integrate Quote Data with ERP / CRM – With most tasks that are not done with an ERP / Business System and/or CRM system, it is generally required to manually input quoting data into these systems.



Configuration Quoting Stage – Once incoming information is analyzed by personnel with adequate knowledge of a specific product, this stage involves the configuration and the various routing steps required to manufacture / fabricate and applying the proper time and material costs for the purpose of generating a quote cost.

Integration Quoting Stage – The final stage of the quoting process is to integrate quote information generated in the previous stage with an ERP / CRM / Business System. In many instances when quoting information is contained in a spreadsheet or other external database that information needs to be retyped into an ERP / CRM / Business system. Conversely, information contained in your business system may also be required at the configuration stage in order to generate accurate sales quote costs.

AUTOMATED QUOTING STAGES

Global Edge Automated Quoting is the premier quoting and product configuration system for the sheet metal fabrication industry. The innovation behind Global Edge provides the capabilities to enhance your existing quoting process / system and provides innovative software tools that address and automate the three main stages of quoting which include:

1. Analysis Quoting Stage 2. Configuration Quoting Stage 3. Integration Quoting Stage

Analysis Quoting Stage – The starting point of the quoting process generally starts with the manual analysis of incoming customer information and specifications which can include drawings / prints, CAD files and other related information.



This subsequently generates part parameter informa-tion required for automated machine tool selection and routing generation. Part parameter information generated by Global Edge for sheet metal parts includes the following parameters:

Flat Length / Width Part Perimeter / Cutout Perimeter Material Type / Thickness Total Number of Cutouts Round Hole Counts / Sizes Obround Hole Counts / Sizes Rectangular Hole Counts / Sizes Other Hole Counts / Sizes Bend Counts (Up Bends / Down Bends) Internal Bend Counts (Up Bends / Down Bends) Total Bends / Total Folds Cutout / Part Distance

ANALYSIS QUOTING STAGE

Incoming Information Processing

The starting point of the quoting process generally starts with the receipt of a Request for Quote (RFQ). The challenge with many non-standard, engineered to order products is analyzing the various forms of information included with the RFQ such as CAD drawings, prints and related information in a variety of formats that needs to be interpreted by someone familiar with the part and/or products being quoted.

Automated Customer Parts Analysis

Global Edge Automated Quoting provides software technology that automates the process of organizing, storing and analyzing part parameter information. This includes automated capabilities to import and analyze customer CAD drawings.



Quote Configuration Engine

The innovation at the core of Global Edge is a powerful “Quote Configuration Engine” that processes part parameter information in a matter of seconds to automatically generate routings, bill of materials and roles up machine process times and material costs to produce an accurate quoted part. This includes the ability to define quoting rules based on the tribal quoting knowledge of your company with functionality that includes:

Automated Routing Selection / Generation Automated BOM Generation / Cost Rollups Automated CAD Model / Drawing Generation Captured Tribal Quoting Knowledge Consistent Configuration Rules Up-to-Date Time and Material Costs

CONFIGURATION QUOTING STAGE

Part Parameter Processing

Once RFQ information is received and analyzed, the next step in the quoting process is to determine how part(s) are manufactured / fabricated. Many times this process is reliant on spreadsheet and/or homegrown software calculations and/or tribal quoting knowledge. With the variations in quoting and product requests, it generally creates a series of quoting constraints.

The Configuration Quoting Stage includes the processing of part parameters that are generated in the Analysis Quoting Stage. Part parameters that have been generated / captured from spreadsheets, customer drawings, web portal, CAD models, DXF files, etc., are queued up in the Global Edge system and processed with the “Quote Configuration Engine”.



Global Edge is designed to both enhance the capabilities of an existing quoting system as well as providing two-way data links from multiple data sources, including spreadsheets to help insure quoting accuracy. This includes a direct link with Microsoft Outlook to capture incoming RFQ information and outgoing quoting information.

Global Edge eliminates the retyping of quoting information throughout the enterprise with capabilities that include:

Importation of Web Site Parameters Importation of Spreadsheet Data / Parameters Importation of ERP Inventory / Material Costs Exportation of Sales Quote Data to ERP Exportation of Sales Opportunity Data to CRM

INTEGRATION QUOTING STAGE

ERP / CRM / Business System Integration

Most manufacturing companies utilize some sort of ERP / CRM / Business system to run the financial portion of their business. Many ERP / CRM / Business systems include quoting software modules. These quoting modules in many cases, fall short in addressing the specific quoting requirements of most manufacturing companies.

Subsequently, this drives the necessity of developing homegrown quoting systems that may not be directly integrated with an ERP / CRM / Business system. This normally results in quoting information from these external quoting systems having to be manually retyped into an ERP / CRM / Business system. This process can also lack delivering updated costs to the quoting system as prices are updated in the business system.



Quote Calculator

Logic Design Corporation has developed a “Quote Calculator” that is free to download from our website that allows you to enter a profile of your current quoting department / capacity. Once you setup your own quoting department profile, you can then enter potential improvement percentages in each of your quoting steps to see what the payback of those percentages are. Below is a sample of the Quote Calculator: To download a free copy of the Quote Calculator Spreadsheet, please click on the below link:

http://www.ldcglobal.com/literature.html

RESULTS / QUOTE CALCULATOR

Return On Investment

Global Edge Automated Quoting delivers a significant Return On Investment (ROI) by automating key labor intensive steps associated with the quoting process. With the ability to automatically import and analyze CAD part parameter information, which subsequently provides the information necessary for automated routing generation / time and material cost rollups, Global Edge not only significantly speeds up the quoting process, but helps delivers accurate sales quote in a timely fashion which increases sales opportunities. The following is an example of time savings that can be achieved with Global Edge through the three stages of quoting:

Organize / Store RFQ Information Time Savings: 25% Customer Part Drawing Preparation Time Savings: 20% Customer Part Analysis Time Savings: 75% Determine Routing Steps / Time / Costs Time Savings: 50% Calculate Material Vendor Costs Time Savings: 50% Generate Part Bill of Materials Time Savings: 25% Sales Quote Approval Time Savings: 25% Integrate Quote Data with ERP / CRM Time Savings: 80%

When you relate these types of time savings for a quoting department with the profile entered on the right side, an expected increase of 175.03 percent in quoting capacity can be achieved with automated quoting capabilities provided by Global Edge.

Results obviously vary with how automated your current quoting system and the potential room for improvement. However, it is not uncommon to achieve significant productivity gains when supplementing your quoting with Global Edge, which is in addition to generating more accurate information, and the difference between winning and losing business and profitable money making orders.


http://www.ldcglobal.com/literature.html


SUMMARY

Global Edge Automated Quoting

As the manufacturing world faces global competition with both price and delivery time pressures, it becomes imperative to generate sales quotes that are not only timely, but accurately reflect true manufacturing costs that make a manufacturing competitive and profitable.

As the manufacturing world becomes increasingly automated from the front office to the shop floor, large OEM manufacturers are facing price pressures that ripple down the supply chain which subsequently increases the quoting demands of suppliers. With the rigid nature of most quoting systems that do not adapt well to specific products, the need for homegrown quoting systems and the dependency on spreadsheets has grown over the course of time. With the sophistication and knowledge that gets built into these quoting systems, simply replacing them with other software technologies can be very painful and costly. The approach of the Global Edge Automated Quoting system is more to supplement and automate the labor intensive quoting steps and integrating with the current quoting tools / methodology.

Global Edge Automated Quoting has the flexibility and capability to work with what you have in place and incrementally transition into a higher level of quoting automation. Global Edge also provides the ability to capture tribal quoting knowledge, which subsequently provides information consistency and reduces the dependency on key personnel within a manufacturing environment to generate accurate and timely sales quotes.

Global Edge Automated Quoting is based on over 25 years of software technology that has provided manufacturing companies that range from small to Fortune 500 with capabilities based on real-world quoting, engineering and manufacturing challenges.

Global Edge Software Suite

Global Edge includes a suite of software tools that can supplement and/or replace specific areas of your quoting process. These software tools include:

Global Edge Quote Configuration Engine Global Edge Automated Quoting / Workflow Global Edge Outlook Interface Global Edge Document Interface Global Edge ERP Interface Global Edge SolidWorks Interface Global Edge Solid Edge Interface Global Edge Advanced BOM Management

To schedule a demonstration of how the Global Edge Automated Quoting system could be of benefit to your company, click on the following link:

http://www.ldcglobal.com/demo.html

Logic Design Corporation 1530 South Norwood Drive New Berlin, WI 53146-1419

Phone: 262-391-0540


http://www.ldcglobal.com/demo.html

white paper increase your quoting capacity and sales ...€¦ · accurate estimates of what your...

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