A customer sends the drawing for a replacement part: a single part, for a machine whose manufacturer no longer exists. The workshop knows how to make it. But before replying, someone has to read the drawing, choose the material, work out the process route, estimate the times, and get prices for the material and the treatment. This takes the estimator half a day, for an order worth a few hundred euros.
The workshop replies with a prohibitive price, or does not reply. The customer looks elsewhere, and the next request of the same kind will meet the same fate.
The fixed cost decides what the workshop accepts
On a run of a thousand parts, the quoting time is spread thin. On a one-off part, it weighs as much as the manufacturing. Most workshops therefore set a threshold, written down or not, below which they do not go.
This threshold reflects the cost of the study, regardless of the workshop’s ability to make the part. Lowering that cost moves the threshold and opens up a customer segment: maintenance of older machines, prototypes, replacement parts, specific tooling.
What the system does
The workshop submits the drawing as received, as a PDF or in the customer’s CAD format. The system:
- reads the drawing and extracts the characteristics that determine the price: material, dimensions, tolerances, surface finishes, treatments;
- finds in past jobs the parts that come close, with their process routes and the times actually recorded in production;
- proposes a process route and an estimated time for each operation, based on these reference parts;
- prepares the quote in the workshop’s format.
The estimator reviews and decides. Their work goes from half a day of building a quote to a few minutes of checking.
The check: feasible before it is quoted
A well-quoted part that the workshop cannot produce costs more than a declined request. A second system, separate from the one that produced the quote, checks the proposal:
- each operation in the process route can be carried out on one of the workshop’s machines, within its travel and capacity limits;
- the tolerances requested are compatible with what those machines actually hold;
- each estimated time points back to the reference parts it comes from, and the gap with their recorded times is shown;
- a request beyond the workshop’s capabilities is declined with the reason given, rather than quoted.
The estimator can see what each line of the quote is based on, and can correct any line that looks wrong.
What remains the workshop’s responsibility
The system prepares. The final price, the margin and the decision to accept remain with the workshop manager, who knows the current workload and the value of the customer. The machining programme and the machine setup remain the operators’ work.
Where to start
The jobs from the last three years provide the material. You will need:
- the drawings and quotes for these jobs;
- above all, the times actually recorded in production for each of them, even if noted by hand;
- the list of machines and their capabilities;
- an estimator, to assess the first proposals.
The system works on these documents, without connecting to the ERP. The result is measured in the revenue generated on one-off orders and small batches that the workshop used to turn down.
Other uses of AI in industry, and a detailed scenario, are described on the page AI applied to industry.