Use case
The most expensive process in a mid-sized company is rarely production - it is the road from enquiry to quotation. It ties up experienced people, runs across several systems, and is still largely routine.
Typical scope: one process
The difference
A person does itThe system does it
How it runs today
How it would run with us
What it gets you
Where it does not fit
If every enquiry is a one-off and there are no comparable jobs, there is little to gain here. The benefit comes from repetition, not from intelligence.
More specific
The process is sector-independent, the fit is not. These pages show the systems, the formats and the rules that actually apply there.
Where parts are made to drawing, the basis of a quotation is a technical document, not a form. The system has to be able to read what was drawn, not what was typed in.
ViewQuote after a site visit and you lose orders by days, not by cents. The leverage is in the time between visit and quotation - not in costing accuracy.
ViewIn trade it is not arithmetic precision that decides but the hit rate on article matching and terms. That is also exactly where the margin sits.
ViewIn construction a quotation is a formal document with a prescribed structure. Errors in it are not expensive, they are disqualifying.
View4 to 6 weeks to the first productive run. Building it is usually the shorter half - the time goes into access, coordination and test cases.
Read access to the quotations closed over the last twelve months - that is where the system learns your costing logic, not from a formula. Access to the ERP, or at least a regular export of jobs and prices. A contact in sales who has two to three hours a week for questions during the first weeks. Nothing more is needed to start.
From verifiable criteria agreed before the build: Across 30 real past enquiries the draft falls within your usual price tolerance in at least 80 % of cases. Every unclear item is flagged - nothing is quietly guessed. No quotation leaves the building without a person releasing it.
The draft is produced independently; the release is always a person. A quotation is a binding document - it never leaves the building unseen.
If every enquiry is a one-off and there are no comparable jobs, there is little to gain here. The benefit comes from repetition, not from intelligence.
In our experience particularly Mechanical engineering, Trades, Wholesale, Construction & building services. The process itself is sector-independent, though - what matters is whether it repeats.
You tell us where your time goes. We put it in writing: what is worth automating, and roughly what that costs.
