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Quotations and pricing

How do you write a specification the shop floor can actually build?

Use typed fields per product family instead of free text: grade, size, coating, tolerance, finish, packing, marking. A sentence describing the job is interpreted; a filled template is executed.

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In short

Use typed fields per product family instead of free text: grade, size, coating, tolerance, finish, packing, marking. A sentence describing the job is interpreted; a filled template is executed.

When a specification arrives as a paragraph, the works manager interprets it. When two plants interpret it differently on two different days, you get a re-run, and the re-run is charged to nobody's account but yours.

A template per family forces the missing question to the surface at quotation stage, when it is cheap to ask the buyer, rather than at production stage when material is already drawn.

Repeatable groups matter too. A single order line often carries several sizes; each needs its own values, not a note saying "as discussed".

Specification templates

Related questions

What is a price book and why does a plant need one?

A price book is the approved rate for each product by customer class, region, quantity slab and delivery basis. Without one, the rate depends on who answered the phone, and margin leaks quietly and permanently.

How do you stop salespeople quoting below the approved rate?

Make the approved rate the default in the quotation and route anything below it through an approval before the document can be sent. Discipline written in a policy is ignored; discipline built into the button is not.

What should a B2B manufacturing quotation include?

Full specification, quantity and slab, rate with the delivery basis stated, taxes, lead time, validity and payment terms. A quotation missing the delivery basis or the validity is the one that gets argued about after the order.

How quickly should a quotation go out after an enquiry?

Standard items should be quoted the same working day; items needing a feasibility check should have a committed date communicated the same day. What loses orders is not a two-day quotation, it is two days of silence.

System of Marketing & Sales

Put enquiry to dispatch on one governed line.

Tell us how your plant sells today. We'll show you where the line breaks and what it takes to close it.

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