Page 57 - MetalForming April 2015

systems that signal how a complex manufacturer operates internally, bid- ding, estimating and quoting say the most about how well a company is run. Bidding and estimating’s immediate impact on gross margins, profitability and the reverberating effects through work-breakdown structures ( WBSs) for project-based manufacturing aren’t easily measured in manually driven systems, making cloud computing an ideal method to measure their worth.
The following are five strategies complex manufacturers are using to streamline manufacturing and posi- tively impact bidding and estimating, thus delivering the revolution that their customers want:
1) Creating a single, unified system of engagement across an entire manufac- turing operation has been shown to improve bidding and estimating by more than 50 percent. By creating a single ver- sion of the truth regarding all bidding and estimating activity, CFOs are better able to see how the many different
approaches to creating business are interacting and succeeding.
2) To increase bidding and estimat- ing close rates, get beyond tribal knowl- edge and create bidding and estimating systems that can scale globally across all channels. This relates to initiating and maintaining a strong change-man- agement program to support automat- ing bidding and estimating. The greater the knowledge sharing, the greater the trust that builds between departments.
3) Using internal audits to drive greater compliance to Six Sigma-driven improve- ments keeps the best manufacturers focused on being customer-driven. It’s not enough to say that you are customer- driven as a manufacturer. Unless you are willing to revamp and in some cases completely dispose of old processes that get in the way of serving customers, it’s all a lot of talk and no action. To excel as a manufacturer, get Six Sigma-driven change going and start measuring your- self like your customers do.
4) Incorporating a single, unified
enterprise-wide bidding and estimating system is helping to standardize proj- ect teams, product divisions and busi- ness units on unified budget practices and consistent WBSs. Propagated com- pany-wide in the production process, unified budget practices and consistent WBS definitions solve conflicts and make the daily operations of project teams, product divisions and business units more efficient.
5) When bidding and estimating moves beyond a siloed or department- based function to an enterprise-wide system, target-cost analysis, competi- tive-bid response accuracy and tim- ing, and lifecycle costing all improve. Integrating interdependent systems for greater project-based performance only occurs when trust is unleashed as a catalyst of permanent change. To make that happen, manufacturers must have bidding and estimating sys- tems provide a level of accuracy and transparency that is not possible with siloed systems. MF
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