A plastics manufacturer replaced days of manual quoting with a system that turns an uploaded CAD file into an accurate price in seconds.
For most manufacturers, quoting still means a customer emailing a file, an estimator opening it manually, checking a spreadsheet, and typing up a response days later. Every one of those steps is a place a deal can stall or a competitor can step in first.
“When customers can upload a file and see a price in seconds, they stop shopping around. Speed becomes the differentiator, not just accuracy.”
The problem with manual quoting
A plastics manufacturer we worked with was losing quote requests to competitors simply because of response time. By the time an estimator had reviewed a CAD file and calculated a price, the customer had often already gotten a faster answer elsewhere.
The bottleneck was never a lack of expertise. It was the mechanical work: opening files, checking specs against pricing rules, and manually writing up the result.
What we built
We built a quoting tool where customers upload their STEP file directly on the website and enter parameters like material, quantity, tolerances, and finish. The system calculates cost automatically based on the part geometry and the manufacturer's own pricing rules.
Once the quote is generated, it is emailed to the customer immediately, formatted and ready to act on, with the option to move straight into order processing.
What changed for the business
Estimators stopped spending their day on routine quotes and started focusing on complex parts that actually need expert judgment. Customers got pricing in seconds instead of days, which noticeably improved how many quotes turned into orders.
This is the same pattern we see across manufacturing: the businesses moving fastest are not necessarily the ones with the best products, but the ones that respond to customers before anyone else gets the chance to.
