When work dries up, every quote matters — and costs more than most people realise.
Most fabricators we talk to are still quoting the same way they've always done. An RFQ lands, the estimator pulls up the drawings, opens the spreadsheets, and spends the better part of a day building a price from scratch.
The instinct when margins tighten is to squeeze harder on the shop floor. Reduce inventory. Cut back on staffing. The smarter move is to look at the front office — and the estimating and quoting process most businesses have never properly scrutinised.
What your quotes are actually costing you
KPMG's research on Australian manufacturers identifies the front office as the most underinvested part of the business — and the area with the most room to save.
According to FMA's decade of benchmarking data, the average job shop takes roughly five days to turn around a quote. And wins fewer than one in three jobs it bids on. Meaning you’re eating the cost on two estimates that went nowhere.
Slow quotes lose jobs to whoever responds first. And your expensive, skilled labour spends half their time on data entry.
Customer churn in Australian manufacturing is at 35%, and acquiring a new customer to replace those who walk away will cost you up to $1,800 a pop. That's the price of being slow, inconsistent, or just hard to deal with.
In a strong market, you can absorb this. Right now, you can't.
Fewer hours per quote, more quotes per week
Your best move is to lower your cost per quote and make sure each one has the best possible chance of winning.
Introducing AI Estimator, by Smart Shop Floor.
It uses machine learning and optical recognition to scan any uploaded client drawings or internal engineering designs to automate take-off of material, parts and labour. It generates an itemised bill of material. Next, a custom-trained AI scans the BOM to flag any items that require human review and links to the original drawing source for transparency. It then applies your price book, calculating material pricing, labour rates per process, margins and outsourcing rates. By the time your estimator sits down, the groundwork is already done. They're reviewing and refining — not starting from scratch. This automation reduces estimators' workload by 80%, enabling them to complete twice as many RFQs with the same headcount.
It also addresses three problems that quietly bleed margin:
Missed BOM items: by automating the verification process, AI acts as a second pair of eyes to ensure no missed scope requirements, preventing accidental undercharging and lost margin.
Sunk engineering costs: sometimes you have to do preliminary engineering work on RFQs to ensure a submission is workable. Having an AI that pulls from past projects and flags similar jobs for cross-reference cuts the time and effort significantly.
Inconsistent pricing: formalising your pricing rules locks them in — eliminating the human error of erratic pricing that bleeds profit.
See AI Estimator in action
If any of this sounds familiar, check out the full AI Estimator demo video. You'll see exactly how a drawing quickly becomes a draft quote, speeding up estimator's workflow by 80%. Or visit the AI Estimator page to learn more and book a walkthrough.