Digital Manufacturing Software for Quoting Professionals

  • Feb 13, 2024
  • | 48

The digital manufacturing software industry is booming. Known for its intelligence and connectivity, it’s helping businesses connect with customers in new ways. This is especially true in the quoting process. In the past, generating quotes in manufacturing required significant man-hours and back-and-forth communication. But thanks to quoting tools like the ones featured below, the process can be simplified and automated.

Designed to handle the intricacies of custom orders, quoting software helps businesses generate accurate quotes that consider all aspects of each order. It also streamlines the quoting process, making it easier for sales teams to turn prospects into close-won deals. Choosing the right quoting tool will help ensure that your team can provide an exceptional customer experience.

Creating a quote from scratch can be difficult in the manufacturing industry because there are often many complex parts and variables involved. Quoting tools can simplify this process by providing standardized templates that are easy to edit and customizable. It’s important to set up standardized templates for consistency, but also to review and optimize them regularly so that they are delivering the best possible results.

Another feature that is key to a good quoting software for manufacturing is the ability to automatically update costs as product configurations change. This will eliminate the need for manual calculations and back-and-forth communications with customers, reducing quoting cycle times.

With an integrated configuration, pricing and quoting (CPQ) solution suite, manufacturers can increase lead conversion rates, shorten quote-to-order cycle times, automate bill-of-materials and manufacturing orders, reduce inventory levels and more. A CPQ solution also provides real-time pricing data from suppliers and manufacturers, as well as valid product configurations to deliver a more precise quote for each unique customer.

When evaluating quoting software for manufacturing, it’s important to choose one that provides an intuitive, user-friendly interface and that offers value for your money. The software should be able to support multiple users, be easily customizable and provide detailed reports to track costs and profitability. It should also be able to integrate with existing systems for seamless workflows.

The aPriori manufacturing cost estimation and quoting solution is built into DELMIA Workbench industrial software and can be used to identify the real-time expected cost of each part. This can include material price comparison, labor and outsourced operations cost estimates, equipment and tooling amortization, commission calculations and miscellaneous additional fees. The result is a scalable quote that can be transformed into a bill of materials and sales order with the click of a button.

Powered by the omnichannel cloud-based enterprise resource planning solution, Aptean Industrial Manufacturing ERP, this quoting tool is easy to use and provides valuable insight into your costs and margins. With a single database, all your pricing and data is centralized, allowing for faster and more consistent quoting. The tool also includes a unified user profile and single sign-on, so all your data is accessible from anywhere.

aPriori allows you to load your customer’s CAD model or an entire bid package, and analyze the costs using different routings, factories or materials – all in a matter of minutes. This will ensure that the quoting you do is based on real-time information and not just guesses, giving your organization confidence in its pricing and positioning in the market.