Don’t let inaccurate quoting sabotage your shop’s financial stability

Digital tools can help a metal fabricator do more with less. Getty Images

Can your metal fabricating company afford to be analog in its quoting activities nowadays?

With steel prices at historic levels and customers unwilling to accept price hikes to cover increasing costs, a fab shop can find itself in a position where it needs to ensure that quotes are accurate and timely. Inaccurate quoting can result in a hit to incoming revenue, which is not something cash-starved businesses want to hear.

The concerns don’t end there. What happens when the lead estimator (and all of his years of experience) is on vacation? Do the other estimators have access to his emails where data points for key clients are kept? What about that yellow pad where he wrote down the latest changes to the quote, reflecting input from the shop floor? In many fab shops, too much institutional knowledge resides in the brains of a few key people. Often those people are in charge of estimating, which puts the entire enterprise at a deficit when those key employees are away from the office.

Relying on analog practices for quoting in the digital age is a recipe for disaster. Metal fabricators need to manage the risk if they are to build a solid foundation on which to grow their business. Without digital tools to help in the critical task of quoting, a fab shop is on a shaky foundation.

Jason Ray, CEO of Paperless Parts, is leading a webinar that might give a metal fabricating company owner or manager some peace of mind when it comes to managing the company’s quoting function. Paperless Parts is a digital platform that enables machine and fabricating shops to streamline their estimating process. Quoting knowledge resides in the system instead of in the minds of key individuals, and it can quickly populate quotes. This automation makes quoting more consistent and accurate. It also makes even less experienced estimators more efficient.

With quoting shored up on the front end, a metal fabricator can manage the business more confidently. Surprises are limited, which is something that anyone in the business can appreciate. For example, with the assistance of a digital tool, an estimator has built-in recommendations about a part’s manufacturability. If the geometry of the part prevents it from being fabricated with a company’s existing technology, the system alerts the estimator. Shop floor employees no longer have to worry about getting a print and wondering, “Who approved this in the front office?”

If you are interested in joining this webinar, register here. Going down the digital path doesn’t have to be a big deal. But it’s definitely a smart move.