Automatic customer quotes

[Devin Montgomery]

Is anyone else interested an easy-to-use web app that could automatically quote customer jobs? I've been both the customer and manufacturer on laser jobs and want this in both cases.

As a customer, I'm more likely to go with the place that gets back to me the first. I also like automatic quotes because they let me tweak my files to get costs down.

As a shop, my quoting process is a mix of Draw to check files for weirdness, Job Control to estimate job time (I use a Trotec), and Excel to mix in material costs, machine time, and setup time. All things where software could instantly replace me (I've also worked with software dev teams).

It seems that the hard parts of making it would be simulating machine cut/etch time and providing good documentation so customers can create their own laser-ready files. But assuming those things could be done, would anyone here be interested in it?

[Gary Hair]

But assuming those things could be done, would anyone here be interested in it?

There are too many variables and little quirks that would make this pretty much useless unless you only engrave a specific list of items and are certain the customer is providing artwork that is usable. As a customer, I would be more concerned about the quality of the job and not so concerned about when they gave me a price. As a service provider I spend a fair amount of time quoting jobs, if I can't get to a job soon enough then I'm probably too busy to reply - not a bad situation to be in. If I lose needed jobs because of that then it's time to hire someone to do it for me. I honestly don't think software is remotely capable of providing a reasonable accurate quote without human intervention.

[Devin Montgomery]

you only engrave a specific list of items

Right, so let's say it starts with the materials you do the most jobs with. I, for instance, do almost exclusively leather so I know the settings by heart. A friend of mine has a shop and does almost entirely plywood.


and are certain the customer is providing artwork that is usable.

Let's say it could do this too, between good documentation (so customers can self-help) and a live preview so they see exactly what they're going to get if they use the file as-is.


As a service provider I spend a fair amount of time quoting jobs Me too! That's why I'd like something like this. Maybe 20% of the jobs I do are tricky and really need my intervention. But the other 80% are pretty simple, and I'd love to be able to give an instant quote on those.

Would something like this be valuable if it could save you some time and get those customers who do want instant quotes?

[Chris J Anderson]

I have a spreadsheet, and I just have a list of materials in a column, with another 2 columns for etch and cut rates per cm, for each material.

Then I have an area where I enter....
1 setup time.
2 material width.
3 material height.
4 engraving width.
5 engraving height.
6 vector length (i use ecut to calculate this if its complex)
7 cleanup / finish time
8 additional materials.

It makes my pricing consistent which commercial clients like to see.

I also have in it pricing for tool engraving stainless and brass etc per letter / size and for colourfilling.

Its easy to do and easy to check against real time jobs to tweak your average setup times etc.

If I know a job is going to be a bit tricky i just add a bit into the additional materials etc to cover it.

I have also done this in a macro in corel so i can do it in the drawing window in front of a client without them seeing details. It inlcudes a qty price scale.

[Scott Anders]

I have a spreadsheet, and I just have a list of materials in a column, with another 2 columns for etch and cut rates per cm, for each material.

Then I have an area where I enter....
1 setup time.
2 material width.
3 material height.
4 engraving width.
5 engraving height.
6 vector length (i use ecut to calculate this if its complex)
7 cleanup / finish time
8 additional materials.

It makes my pricing consistent which commercial clients like to see.

I also have in it pricing for tool engraving stainless and brass etc per letter / size and for colourfilling.

Its easy to do and easy to check against real time jobs to tweak your average setup times etc.

If I know a job is going to be a bit tricky i just add a bit into the additional materials etc to cover it.

I have also done this in a macro in corel so i can do it in the drawing window in front of a client without them seeing details. It inlcudes a qty price scale.

This sounds like a product that people would be interested in purchasing (in particular myself) For engraving I use a square area based spreadsheet unlike the complex one I use for printing.

[Ross Moshinsky]

Here's my opinion. You're opening a can of worms.

Would I like a way to produce quotes a heck of a lot faster? Of course. Do I think you can effectively do that on heavily customized items? It's unlikely.

To me, you'd have to start with one idea. Cutting acrylic for example. And make all the variables work for that. Then you can look at another material, like "Rowmark" or Baltic birch. Then look at something like anodized aluminum. My experience is there are a lot of exceptions that need to be accounted for and an automated system can't do that. If you're doing 100's of orders, maybe it will average out. If you're relatively low volume, it would be deadly.

[Devin Montgomery]

I have a spreadsheet, and I just have a list of materials in a column, with another 2 columns for etch and cut rates per cm, for each material.

Then I have an area where I enter....
1 setup time.
2 material width.
3 material height.
4 engraving width.
5 engraving height.
6 vector length (i use ecut to calculate this if its complex)
7 cleanup / finish time
8 additional materials.

It makes my pricing consistent which commercial clients like to see.

I also have in it pricing for tool engraving stainless and brass etc per letter / size and for colourfilling.

Its easy to do and easy to check against real time jobs to tweak your average setup times etc.

If I know a job is going to be a bit tricky i just add a bit into the additional materials etc to cover it.

I have also done this in a macro in corel so i can do it in the drawing window in front of a client without them seeing details. It inlcudes a qty price scale.

This is great Chris! It sounds like your process is already highly automated. In your case, the app would basically be a self-serve version of the macro. Customers could upload a file online, see how much it would run them (hiding some of the details, just like the macro), and click a button to order. Is that something you'd want?

[Gary Hair]

Exactly my point. For the (very) few customers that it would work well for, you couldn't possibly justify the time and/or expense to create and maintain the system.


Here's my opinion. You're opening a can of worms.

Would I like a way to produce quotes a heck of a lot faster? Of course. Do I think you can effectively do that on heavily customized items? It's unlikely.

To me, you'd have to start with one idea. Cutting acrylic for example. And make all the variables work for that. Then you can look at another material, like "Rowmark" or Baltic birch. Then look at something like anodized aluminum. My experience is there are a lot of exceptions that need to be accounted for and an automated system can't do that. If you're doing 100's of orders, maybe it will average out. If you're relatively low volume, it would be deadly.

[Devin Montgomery]

To me, you'd have to start with one idea. Cutting acrylic for example. And make all the variables work for that. I totally agree. What does your shop do the most of? Is it acrylic?

[Keith Downing]

An app might be overkill, but any programmer could write a php script to read these variables out of a database and return a custom quote on a web page. It's not an especially complicated implementation to be honest.

The real issue is, are you going to try to honor a price quote someone creates online that they "think" is for what they need? When in reality most will probably not fully understand what they need to get the results they are really after. It seems like there is a large potential for headaches.

[John Kleiber]

Whenever I visit automated websites, things are down to a science. The customer has to use their product (no marking surprises), engraving area and fonts are strictly limited. In that scenario, they are running the numbers through and making money on the volume. They are grabbing low hanging fruit. ........Need 6 glasses for your wedding, pick the glasses and how many, pick your text, press checkout.

The problem with automated quoting is just about every project I do is different.

What is the material?
Number of items to be marked?
Whats the hourly rate in relation to the marking price each?
Size of items to be marked?
Total engraving area?
Value of the item engraved?
Method of marking anneal, etch, deep engrave etc?
Time Unpacking/Packing if already boxed?
Is shipping required?
Is customer dropping off items and picking up?
Artwork time to create or fix graphic?
Setup time to create mount to steady item/items?
Actual number of items engravable at once?
Labor time to go back and forth with customer, make a proof for customer approval?
Transfer time from point to point loading and unloading from laser?
Prevailing market rate charges by others in geographic area and nationwide?
Is this a one shot deal or do I price to possibly encourage more business comes my way?

-John

[Kev Williams]

Years and years ago I tried to come up with some sort of formula for price per character, changes at so many characters, material costs, etc...
I just plain didn't work. Character height differences. Engraving speed differences. Material differences. Unforeseen differences...

So I pretty much just guess at it. :)

I've found that if the first thing I tell a customer is "I base my pricing on time estimates, and this looks like a ______ minute(hour, day) job, so you're looking at around $X.xx", I typically don't get hit back with "why so much?"
-- Typically ;) ... There's always going to be those who don't realize I can't work for $14 an hour...

[Doug Fisher]

For some ideas, you might like to review how it works on this site:

https://www.bigbluesaw.com/

[Devin Montgomery]

First of all, thanks everyone for your feedback!


For some ideas, you might like to review how it works on this site:

https://www.bigbluesaw.com/

Yeah, so that's a good example. The sites I've seen with auto quoting are: http://www.bigbluesaw.com/, https://www.ponoko.com/, and https://www.sculpteo.com/. None of them are perfect, but Sculpteo is probably the easiest to use from a customer's point of view. Here's how a shop that does stainless steel implemented their own: http://lasergist.com/.

So my question is would you like something like that for your shop? Not something that would handle everything, but the jobs you get a lot of, are relatively easy, and that you'd like to get more of?

The one service that I've seen offer this is https://www.cutquote.com/, but it looks like it's a pain for both shops to setup and customers to use, and it doesn't cover etching. Basically I'm wondering about something like that done right.

[Bill George]

So Devin, what kind of laser or lasers do you have in your shop. Sounds like your really busy to want a automatic quoting system set up?

[Devin Montgomery]

So Devin, what kind of laser or lasers do you have in your shop. Sounds like your really busy to want a automatic quoting system set up?

I owned a ULS X100 for a few years, but now use a Trotec Speedy 400 at TechShop Pittsburgh. I started out doing mostly plywood, now do almost exclusively leather. I also have a few friends with laser shops I've been talking to about this (one uses an Epilog, one has a bunch of Rabbits and one has a big 2000w fiber laser as part of a much larger shop).

Aside from making physical products, I've also worked in software development and have seen good software make things that seem like irreducible pains actually move a lot smoother. Another friend of mine and I have started working on a first version of this for me and other folks at TechShop, but wanted to see if there was broader interest. It would be overkill for just one shop, but if a lot of people wanted it, we could make something really nice.

[Keith Downing]

So Devin, what kind of laser or lasers do you have in your shop. Sounds like your really busy to want a automatic quoting system set up?

I haven't said anything to this point, but I think it's going to turn out that Devin wants to sell you this implementation...at least it seems that way with this being his first post here.

[Devin Montgomery]

I haven't said anything to this point, but I think it's going to turn out that Devin wants to sell you this implementation...at least it seems that way with this being his first post here.

Fair enough. :) I'm a long-time reader, first time poster. I want the thing for sure, trying to figure out if it already exists (which would be great) or is worth building.

[John Kleiber]

I was in IT before this this laser business. During my time as a network admin at a major national print house, one site alone had 4 estimators. So even with software to get any degree of automation to quote, it took 4 people to estimate. But that was not enough, you have input from the salesman, press man and pre-prep. it goes on and on. How long has mass printing for the populus been around and print automation is still way behind.

What do they say on that goofy show Shark Tank... I'm Out.

[Bill George]

I don't think there are enough businesses that run laser engraving are that large enough to justify the price tag of your estimating software. However I think a program like I referenced (VinylMaster) above for laser control systems with multi controller driver capabilities would make you rich.

[Matt McCoy]

Ponoko and Shapeways are great examples of current implementation of automatic quotes, if one needs proof of concept. They've been around for years and have a wide variety of processes and materials. The ability for a one-person corporation or similar small business to have such a feature might be appealing to those who wouldn't normally have access or ability. If you get enough interest and make a return on your investment and talent -- good for you.

[Simon Arthur]

Putting this software in established shops would require them to change the way they do business, which is hard. You can see this in the first response to you post. Also, smaller shops don't need this software as much as their advantage is in personal interaction.

OTOH, I've been down this path already and have been successful with it. I wrote the quoting software for Big Blue Saw.

[Devin Montgomery]

Putting this software in established shops would require them to change the way they do business, which is hard. You can see this in the first response to you post. Also, smaller shops don't need this software as much as their advantage is in personal interaction.

OTOH, I've been down this path already and have been successful with it. I wrote the quoting software for Big Blue Saw.

I'd love to hear more about that. I think you guys were the first to do it, at least the earliest I saw. Is the Big Blue Saw shop built entirely around the auto-quoting software or does it run along side more traditional jobs?

[Simon Arthur]

eMachineshop was before Big Blue Saw, but it's a little different in that you design using their software.

The answer to your question is complicated. E-mail me if you want to know more.