How long should quoting actually take?
In manual quoting, most of the time goes to data entry, feature counting and spec lookups, not to the pricing judgement itself. Automating extraction removes that portion, so turnaround shifts toward review and the judgement calls that were always going to need a person. What is left still varies with RFQ complexity and how complete the package arrived.
Key facts
- Category
- Choosing a tool
- Applies to
- Panels and switchgear
- Customiser's own metric
- 10x faster quoting (Customiser's approved figure)
- Last verified
- August 28, 2026
What actually takes the time in manual quoting?
Counting features off a drawing, looking up a spec code, re-typing a BOM into a spreadsheet, chasing a price for an outsourced part by email. Almost none of this is the pricing decision itself; it is the work required before a price can even be attempted, and it scales with how many documents and how many pages a job carries.
What changes when extraction is automated?
The remaining time shifts toward review and judgement: checking flagged fields, deciding on margin, resolving a spec-versus-drawing contradiction. This is a smaller and more consistent chunk of time than the data-entry work it replaces, because it scales with how much genuinely needs a decision, not with how many pages the RFQ happened to run to.
What is a realistic turnaround, and what still varies it?
There is no single honest number for every shop, since turnaround still depends on RFQ complexity, how complete the package arrived, and how much review a shop chooses to apply before a quote goes out. Customiser's own approved figure, a 10x reduction against manual quoting, describes that specific comparison; treat it, and any vendor's speed claim, as a statement about what was measured rather than a universal constant.
Does faster mean rushed?
No, and it should not. The traceability and review gate stay in place regardless of how quickly extraction runs; the speed comes from removing re-typing and re-counting, not from skipping the check that catches a wrong number before it reaches a customer.
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