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Bottle Neck Solutions · Detailed bottleneck report

Northbridge Precision Ltd.

Precision manufacturing · 120 staff · Midlands

A quiet, orderly precision machine shop at golden hour, rows of CNC machines and racked aluminium stock

The bottleneck

Every request for quotation needs a senior engineer to read drawings and price material and machine time by hand. With two engineers and around 40 RFQs a week, quotes take up to five working days and buyers often order elsewhere first.

Cost of inaction

≈ £520k /yr

Estimated: 60 engineer hours/week plus ~8 lost orders/month at £4.5k average.

Your workflow, modelled

Every report comes with an interactive model of your own workflow: where work piles up today, and how it flows once the bottleneck is fixed.

How the work flows

Before: Two engineers price every RFQ by hand, so quotes take up to five days.

After: AI drafts the estimate from the drawings; an engineer checks and sends it.

Options compared

OptionBuildTimelineCare plan
Instant Quote BuilderQuick Win£4,500–£6,5003 weeks£350/mo
AI Estimating AssistantCore Fix£14,000–£19,0007 weeks£750/mo
Autonomous Quote-to-Order PlatformTransformation£38,000–£52,00016 weeks£1,500/mo

Your £49 report fee is deducted from whichever build you choose.

Option 1 · Quick Win

Instant Quote Builder

Produce accurate, branded quotes in minutes instead of days.

How it works

A secure web tool where estimators pick part type, material, quantity and finish. It applies your machine rates, material prices and margin rules automatically, then generates a branded PDF quote and logs it in your CRM.

Expected impact

Quote time falls from ~3 hours to ~20 minutes for standard parts, so roughly 70% of RFQs are quoted same day.

Build plan

  1. Map pricing rules from your current spreadsheets
  2. Build the quoting interface
  3. Connect material price list
  4. Branded PDF generation
  5. CRM logging
  6. Train estimators & launch

Connects to

Excel pricing sheetsHubSpot CRMOutlook

Risks & how we manage them

  • • Pricing spreadsheets may contain inconsistent rules
  • • Complex bespoke parts still need an engineer
Option 2 · Core Fix

AI Estimating Assistant

AI reads drawings and RFQs and drafts the full estimate for an engineer to approve.

How it works

Incoming RFQs are read automatically. AI extracts geometry, tolerances, materials and quantities from PDF and STEP drawings, estimates machine time from similar past jobs, and drafts a priced quote. Engineers review, adjust and send in one click.

Expected impact

Same-day quotes for ~90% of RFQs. At your stated 40 RFQs a week and 25% win rate, a 6-point win-rate gain is worth an estimated £380k a year in additional orders.

Build plan

  1. Collect 200 historic quotes as training examples
  2. Drawing & spec extraction pipeline
  3. Cycle-time estimation from past jobs
  4. Engineer review screen
  5. Quote PDF & CRM integration
  6. Accuracy testing against real quotes
  7. Launch & monitoring

Connects to

Shared inboxERP job historyHubSpot CRMExcel cost library

Risks & how we manage them

  • • Older drawings may be low quality scans
  • • Engineers must trust the estimates, so a 4-week parallel run is included
  • • Needs clean historic job data
Option 3 · Transformation

Autonomous Quote-to-Order Platform

From RFQ to signed order to scheduled job in one seamless, AI-run flow.

How it works

Extends the estimating assistant into a client portal where buyers upload drawings and receive instant indicative prices, accept quotes with e-signature, and orders flow straight into production scheduling with capacity checks.

Expected impact

Removes quoting as a constraint entirely and opens a 24/7 self-serve sales channel for repeat customers.

Build plan

  1. Everything in the Core Fix
  2. Customer self-service portal
  3. E-signature & order acceptance
  4. Production capacity check
  5. ERP order creation
  6. Win/loss analytics dashboard
  7. Phased roll-out to key accounts

Connects to

ERPHubSpot CRMDocuSignProduction schedule

Risks & how we manage them

  • • Bigger change for customers and staff
  • • ERP integration complexity
  • • Best done after the Core Fix proves accuracy

Our recommendation

Start with the AI Estimating Assistant. It removes the bottleneck for most RFQs, pays back in an estimated 2–3 months, and is the foundation for the full platform later.

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