Case studies · Industrial Manufacturing · Sales Operations

Standard quotes turned around in 8 hours, down from 3.4 days

Two senior estimators were the bottleneck on every quote. An assistant took over the preparation on routine requests, and the estimators still set every price.

Industrial Manufacturing

Client

A 45-person precision manufacturer receiving 20 to 30 requests for quotation each week.

By the numbers

What changed

8 hrs

Median turnaround on a standard quote request, down from 3.4 days

70%

Less estimator prep per quote: 2.5 hours became 45 minutes

94%

Of quotes back by the date the customer asked for, up from 68%

Estimator prep time per quote

70% less

Before2.5 hours
After45 minutes

Aurenia engagement record, per quote

Quotes back by the customer's requested date

68% before

94% after

Aurenia engagement record

The challenge

Only two people in the building could read an incoming drawing, find the comparable jobs and build a quote they would stand behind. Simple requests waited in the same line as hard ones. The specs were scattered through emails and PDFs, and the pricing history lived in spreadsheets.

What we built

A quoting assistant. It sorted each request, pulled out the specifications that mattered and found similar jobs the shop had done before. Then it drafted the scope, the assumptions and a pricing worksheet, and handed that to an estimator.

Where a person stayed in charge

When the assistant wasn't sure about a field, it flagged it instead of guessing.
Pricing rules came only from the company's approved sources.
Estimators approved every price, term and exception.
Quotes went out on the existing template.

How it ran

1
Read
Sort the email, drawings and specs.
2
Compare
Find similar past jobs and approved pricing inputs.
3
Prepare
Draft scope, assumptions and a pricing worksheet.
4
Approve
An estimator signs off on every commercial term.
A person signs off here

The result

Routine requests reached an estimator as a draft ready for a decision, not a blank page. The shop answered sooner, the estimators kept every pricing call, and their time went to the jobs that needed it, like unusual materials and tight tolerances.

8 hrs

Median turnaround on a standard quote request, down from 3.4 days

Document extractionKnowledge retrievalHuman approvalQuote preparation