Every OEM in the automotive industry works with specific quotation templates. For supplier companies, this means creating comprehensible calculations for each manufacturer and transmitting the quotation data to the OEM as quickly as possible. The more complex the bill of materials, the more variants and the greater the need for plausibility checks, the more likely it is that cost estimators will be pressed for time. Quotations are sent too late or contain errors.
Keep manual data transfer in quotation costing to a minimum
Each quotation costing and each cost breakdown (quotation breakdown, open book costing) are created separately. In case of multiple variants offered, a cost breakdown must also be created for each product variant. Let's assume that a component is to be offered in 15 different variants. This leads to 15 quotation costings, and the quotation data of each costing must be transferred to the OEM's quotation template. An error-free manual transfer of the data from the quotation costing takes up to 60 minutes.
With 15 quotation variants, an employee spends almost two working days just transferring and checking the data in the quotation template. This is valuable working time that the quote estimator cannot use for analyzing and optimizing the costs. A costly and time-consuming task that is error-prone.
Break down quotation costs and transfer quotation data automatically
The most secure and fastest way to work with quotation data is to reduce manual data processing and systematize the breakdown of costs for the customer. Software solutions for quotation and cost estimation offer automotive suppliers ideal options for comprehensibly adapting internal costs to sales requirements and making them plausible for OEM requirements. For this, the OEM's calculation logic and the agreed or prescribed purchase prices and cost rates are taken into account.
With BHTC, an experienced company in the automotive supply industry relies on Enterprise Product Costing. Learn in the Best Practice Session how costing processes in the automotive industry can be optimized through cross-departmental collaboration between Cost Engineering and Sales. Watch video
Costing and quoting software solutions automate estimating workflows and put costing teams one step ahead in the race for the contract.
In our view, a software solution for quotation costing in the automotive supply industry should address the following business needs:
- Mapping internal costing in a company-specific costing sheet
- Mapping costing for the OEM in the costing solution and
- Link or synchronize the two resulting cost estimates.
Efficient collaboration on the calculation of quotation data succeeds when the teams can also use transfer and synchronization functions. Examples include...
- Data transfer from internal costing to quotation costing or shadow costing in internal costing.
- Synchronization between internal costing and quotation costing for future changes.
- Automated data transfer from the quotation costing to the final quotation template of the OEM.
Four advantages of a software for calculation of quotation data
Audit-proof working and archiving Team members determine, edit and document the OEM quote in a central application. Changes in the original, internal calculation can be adopted via the synchronization function.
Accelerate costing processes The time required to transfer data from an estimate to the OEM's quotation template can be reduced to a maximum of five minutes using an automated process.
Avoiding incorrect data Suppliers transfer the data from the external calculation into the quotation template at the push of a button and do not need to transfer data manually.
Preserve context and conditions Conditions and transformation rules of the OEMs are consistently taken into account during an automated data transfer, and the OEM quotation template remains technically unchanged.
Delve deeper into quotation costing and watch our webinar video on how software-assisted cost estimating and quoting can help you tangibly increase margins.
