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Cost Engineering

Faster, Clearer, Safer: Boost Sales Offer Efficiency with Cost Engineering Software

In the manufacturing industry, suppliers often face challenges in preparing fast sales offers, accurate quotes, and cost transparency. Cost engineering software like Tset can help solve these challenges by streamlining cost calculation processes and enhancing sales offer quality and efficiency.

The manufacturing industry relies heavily on a complex network of partners in the distributed value chain in order to work efficiently. For large original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), creating all the necessary parts in-house would be nearly impossible and too costly. This is where suppliers play a crucial role, providing custom-built components tailored to the specific needs of manufacturers.

However, suppliers often face significant challenges, depending on their market and the competitive situation. If they are asked to submit an offer, they must qualify by submitting detailed and precise offers within the set deadline and often also disclose the cost structures. Even with in-house cost engineering teams, this process can be time-consuming, prone to human error, and overly reliant on individual experts' knowledge and availability.

Cost engineering software offers a solution to these challenges, enabling suppliers to optimize their processes and improve the quality of their offers. By using such tools, suppliers can position themselves more competitively in the market and better serve the needs of major OEMs.

Optimizing the Sales Offer Process: Key Elements for Success

At the heart of a successful supplier-OEM relationship lies an optimal sales offer process. But what does this look like in practice?

An optimal sales offer process should be independent, error-free, and repeatable. While in-house experts provide valuable expertise, relying solely on individual knowledge can be risky, especially during periods of resource constraints. Implementing scalable cost engineering software mitigates these risks and ensures consistent, high-quality outputs.

Transparency is essential in the supplier-OEM relationship. Suppliers must be able to defend their pricing and explain the rationale behind their costs. This requires using clear, reproducible calculations instead of estimates or guesses. By providing this level of detail, suppliers ensure that OEMs understand all included costs and their significance.

This leads us to an important question: What should a comprehensive cost calculation do? Ideally, it should provide a reliable and target-oriented cost structure. This valuable output isn't just a one-time tool - it can be repurposed in future negotiations.

When working with next-tier suppliers, there's no need to recreate calculations from scratch, as the existing knowledge is leveraged. Moreover, by incorporating embedded cost structures for processes and materials, suppliers can easily benchmark their offers against industry standards based on best-practice greenfield calculations, ensuring competitive pricing. 

Another key focus of the sales offer process is the analysis of purchased parts. By carefully examining the costs associated with components sourced from sub-suppliers, companies can identify potential savings and ensure competitive pricing.

Finally, by including suppliers in calculations, transparency in the purchasing process is increased. This approach ensures a more accurate representation of costs throughout the supply chain.

Key Challenges Faced by Suppliers in the Manufacturing Industry

Most of our customers want an ideal sales offer process to be fast, clear, and secure. The right cost engineering software can make a significant impact on achieving these important objectives. However, suppliers in the manufacturing sector face various challenges that can impact their efficiency, profitability, and competitiveness. Understanding these pain points is important for finding the right solution to streamline and enhance the sales offer process. 

1. Time constraints and high volume of requests

Being part of a competitive industry, suppliers are often faced with tight deadlines and a high volume of requests from OEMs. The pressure to respond quickly to numerous requests while maintaining accuracy can be overwhelming, potentially leading to errors or missed opportunities.

2. Demand for full transparency

OEMs are increasingly demanding comprehensive cost transparency from their suppliers, which can go as far as open book accounting. This demand for detailed cost breakdown has even become standard in some industries and markets. Meeting these demands while protecting proprietary information and meeting supplier financial targets can be a difficult balancing act for suppliers.

3. Adapting to mid-process changes

Projects rarely remain static from start to finish. Suppliers must be prepared to handle changes and adjustments throughout the process. This flexibility is crucial, but it can be time-consuming and error-prone without the right tools to quickly recalculate and update offers.

4. Internal financial management

Beyond external challenges, suppliers must maintain robust internal financial controls. This includes accurate profitability analysis and effective cost management across all operations. Balancing these internal needs with external pressures requires sophisticated tools and processes.

5. Managing next-tier suppliers relationships

Working with next-tier suppliers brings additional complexity. Delays in receiving information or variations in sub-supplier costs can significantly impact a supplier's ability to provide timely and accurate quotes to OEMs. Reducing dependency on these external factors is critical to remain competitive.

Addressing these challenges effectively requires a strategic approach, often involving the implementation of advanced cost engineering software like Tset. Such tools can help streamline processes, improve accuracy, and provide the agility needed to thrive in the fast-paced manufacturing industry.

Why Tset?

Suppliers in the manufacturing industry face huge challenges that can be solved with the help of the right cost calculation software. Tset directly addresses these pain points with its advanced cost engineering software.

  • Unlike manual processes where individual experts may produce varying results, Tset always ensures the repeatability of results. This consistency is critical for the reliability of your quotes and building trust with your customers.
  • Tset enables both expert cost engineers and less experienced team members to achieve the same accurate results. By standardizing processes and methods, Tset creates a central knowledge base that speeds up the creation of target costs and quotes by up to five times.
  • Tset's best practices for brownfield scenarios enable you to make informed decisions even with limited supplier information. By leveraging data from previous negotiations, you can optimize resource allocation and improve cost efficiency.

Create calculation with Tset software

Conclusion

Cost engineering software like Tset offers significant benefits for suppliers in the manufacturing industry.

1.Greater competitiveness: By streamlining processes and improving accuracy, suppliers can submit more competitive quotes and win more business.

2.Improved efficiency: Automated calculations and standardized methodologies reduce time-to-quote and minimize errors, enabling suppliers to respond quickly to a high volume of requests.

3.Adaptability: The ability to quickly recalculate and update quotes when project changes occur ensures suppliers remain flexible in a dynamic market.

4.Greater transparency: Detailed insight into your own costs and those of the required suppliers as well as clear calculations help you to better achieve your own financial targets.

By leveraging cost engineering software like Tset, suppliers can transform challenges into opportunities, positioning themselves as reliable, efficient partners in the complex manufacturing ecosystem.

Author

Michael Rieder
Executive Account Manager

26.09.2024

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