Job Shops Keep the Margin They Quote When Every Job Is Costed Back
Job shops keep the margin they quote when every job is costed back, and the AgentWorks Cost Estimating Agent is what closes that loop. It prices each RFQ from current material costs in your purchase history, applies measured cycle times by work center, allocates overhead by the resources the job actually uses, builds the quote for your estimator to approve, and compares quoted cost to actual job cost after the order ships.
What it takes off your plate
Here is how most quotes get built. An RFQ arrives with a drawing and a quantity. The estimator opens the spreadsheet from a similar part last year, updates what they can remember, and applies the standard overhead rate. Material prices in the sheet may be from before the last increase. Cycle times are estimates somebody made when the part first ran.
Overhead is spread evenly whether the job runs on a five-axis machining center or a manual saw. The shop wins the job at a margin that looks fine on paper, then the actual costs come in and the margin is gone. Nobody compares the quote with the job cost report, so the next quote repeats the same mistake. The cost is jobs won at a loss, jobs lost to overpricing, and estimators too buried in spreadsheets to call customers back.
What the Cost Estimating Agent does, step by step
The Cost Estimating Agent begins with the conversations an RFQ needs.
- It acknowledges the RFQ. It confirms receipt to the customer contact, logs the RFQ against the customer account and gives a quote due date.
- It asks for what is missing. If the drawing revision, material specification, finish or annual quantity is unclear, it emails the buyer with the specific question and follows up until the answer arrives.
- It checks material prices. It pulls the latest prices from your purchase history in the ERP and, where the last purchase is old, requests a current price from the supplier.
- It applies measured times. It uses cycle and setup times recorded on the shop floor for similar operations at each work center, rather than old estimates.
- It allocates overhead by resource. It assigns overhead according to the machines, labor and outside processes the routing actually uses.
- It builds the quote. It prepares the quote with the cost build-up behind it for the estimator to review, adjust and approve. Pricing decisions stay with the estimator and sales manager. Once approved, it sends the quote and follows up with the buyer before it expires.
- It closes the loop. After the order ships, it compares quoted material, labor and overhead to the actual job cost and records where they differed.
Where the work is recorded
Every RFQ, question, supplier price request and follow-up is logged on the customer account in the CRM your sales team already uses, so anyone answering the buyer's call knows exactly where the quote stands.
The quote and its cost build-up live in your ERP, such as Epicor or JobBOSS, attached to the part and the customer. After shipment, the quote-versus-actual comparison sits beside the job cost report. The next morning your estimator sees quotes due today, open questions with customers, and a list of recently shipped jobs where actual cost ran away from the quote, with the operation that caused it. The Cost Estimating Agent builds that history job by job, so every new quote starts from what the floor actually did.
For the other half of the promise to a customer, see how manufacturers keep promise dates when every order is checked first.
What your people do instead
Your estimator spends time on judgment: the tricky tolerance that needs a word with the engineer, the pricing call on a strategic customer account, the conversation with a buyer about a better lot size. Your sales team calls customers back while the RFQ is still fresh.
Your plant manager reviews quote-versus-actual findings with the supervisors and fixes the operation that keeps running over, instead of finding out at year-end. Customer relationships and every pricing decision are human work; the agent keeps the data, the requests and the follow-up moving around them. When a won job hits the schedule, our post on the production scheduling agent picks up the story.
One next step
If your quotes still start from last year's spreadsheet, take the free Manufacturing Industry Assessment. It shows which workflow an agent should take first. To see every agent built for manufacturers, visit the AgentWorks manufacturing page.
See where the Cost Estimating Agent would start in your manufacturing business.
I'm Diane, the Manufacturing ambassador here. The free Industry Assessment reads your website and asks how calls, follow-ups and records happen today, then shows the first workflow worth handing to an agent like this one — and what your team gets back. Leave your email and I'll send the link.
Diane replies from manufacturing@agentworksstudio.com. One email with the link — no list, no drip, unless you ask for the weekly letter. Or go straight there →