Finding manufacturing enquiries worth quoting your time on

3 days ago
3 min read

Introduction

Estimating is the hidden cost in small-batch manufacturing. Every enquiry consumes an engineer's time to read drawings, work out process, price material and produce a quotation, and a substantial proportion of those enquiries were never real. Some are price-checks against a supplier the buyer intends to keep. Some are students. Some are businesses with no funding.

A workshop quoting everything spends a great deal of unpaid time and wins a low proportion of it. A workshop that qualifies first spends the same hours on fewer, better enquiries and wins considerably more.

The filter is a short set of questions asked before the drawings are opened. None of them are difficult to ask.

Finding manufacturing enquiries worth quoting means qualifying first

Five minutes of questions saves hours of estimating.

Ask about quantity and repeatability. A one-off prototype and an annual call-off of two thousand are entirely different propositions. Ask for the annual volume, not just this order.

Ask who they buy from now, and why they are asking you. A buyer with a specific problem is real; a buyer who volunteers nothing is usually benchmarking. The answer is usually revealing either way.

Ask about the timescale and whether it is funded. A project without a budget or a date is an enquiry, not a job. Ask when they need parts in their hands.

Ask what tolerance and finish they actually need. Over-specified drawings are common and the answer changes the price substantially. Ask what the part actually has to do.

Look for the customers who repeat

One-off work does not build a business.

Target components rather than projects. Anything a customer needs continuously produces scheduled work against known tooling. Tooling already made is your advantage.

Pursue businesses that assemble. Anybody making a finished product buys the same parts every month. Find out what they assemble.

Ask existing customers what else they buy. Most order one component from you and several from elsewhere. Nobody asks. Ask at the next delivery.

Favour the sectors with long product lives. Rail, agriculture, industrial equipment and utilities need parts for decades. Obsolescence work is well paid.

Be findable for the capability, not the trade

Buyers search for a process and a material.

Name your processes and capacities precisely. Machine sizes, tolerances, materials, batch ranges. Buyers filter on exactly this. Publish the numbers rather than adjectives.

Show the work you actually want. Photographs of typical parts attract similar parts. A gallery of your most complex job attracts enquiries you cannot price. Show the ordinary parts you make well.

Say what you do not do. It saves both sides time and it makes the rest credible. Name the processes you subcontract.

Make the quotation win the work

Once you have decided to quote, quote properly.

Return it quickly. Buyers frequently place with whoever responded first among acceptable quotes. Same day where the drawing allows it.

Quote setup and unit price separately. It shows the buyer how batch size changes the economics and invites a larger order. Quote three quantities as standard.

Offer the design-for-manufacture observation. Telling a buyer how a small change would reduce the cost is what wins accounts rather than jobs. It also demonstrates that you understood the part.

Conclusion

Estimating is unpaid work, so qualify before you open the drawings: ask about quantity and repeatability, who they currently buy from and why they are asking you, whether the project is funded and dated, and what tolerance is genuinely required.

Aim at components rather than projects and at businesses that assemble, because both produce repeat orders against tooling you already have. Be findable for your actual processes, materials and batch ranges rather than for manufacturing in general, and show typical work rather than your most complex. Then quote quickly, separate setup from unit price so batch economics are visible, and offer the observation about how a small design change would reduce the cost.