CASE STUDY
From Weeks to Accurate Quotes: How a U.S. Wire Harness Manufacturer Transformed Its Workflow
80
Employees
1
Manufacturing location
2–4
Weeks for a quote to reach the customer, before Harness Suite
Customer Profile
- U.S.-based wire harness manufacturer
- Approximately 80 employees
- One manufacturing location
- Multiple customers and vendors
- Complex projects received in CSV, Creo, Zuken, and print-based formats
The Challenge
For this wire harness manufacturer, preparing a quote was a slow, manual process.
Customer data arrived in different formats, from CSV files and engineering platforms such as Creo and Zuken to conventional drawings. Employees had to interpret the information, transfer it into spreadsheets, and calculate material and labor costs manually.
Because the company relied heavily on Excel, estimators could not consistently capture every manufacturing step. Some labor requirements had to be estimated from experience, increasing the risk of underquoting a job or submitting a price that was not competitive.
Material pricing created another challenge. Vendor costs could change between the time a quote was prepared and the time production began, but the company had no efficient way to compare current prices with the prices used in the original estimate.
Depending on harness size and complexity, quote turnaround could take two to four weeks. By the time a quote reached the customer, the opportunity could already be at risk.
Engineering Was Starting Over With Every Job
The same inefficiencies continued after an order was awarded.
Engineering information lived in spreadsheets, drawings, and physical files stored in cabinets. Shop-floor engineers often had to search for information, recreate manufacturing instructions, and solve problems that had already been addressed on similar projects.
Instead of building on standardized processes and reusable engineering data, the team was reinventing the workflow for each job. The company needed a large engineering staff simply to keep up.
The Solution: Harness Suite
The manufacturer implemented Harness Suite to connect engineering, quoting, and manufacturing in a single SaaS platform.
Harness Suite allows the team to import customer data electronically, including CSV-based information and data originating from Creo and Zuken workflows. Instead of repeatedly entering and interpreting the same information, the company imports the data once and uses it throughout the project.
The platform also helps the team:
- Connect with vendors for current component information and technical specifications
- Apply the appropriate manufacturing processes automatically
- Capture labor requirements more completely and consistently
- Maintain material and process data in a centralized system
- Reuse engineering information instead of rebuilding it for every job
- Carry accurate quote data forward into engineering and manufacturing
Faster, More Accurate Quoting
Estimators gained a clearer view of the materials, labor, and manufacturing operations required for each harness. This reduced guesswork and helped prevent important production activities from being left out of the quote.
Access to more current vendor and material information also gave the company greater confidence in its pricing. Instead of relying on disconnected spreadsheets and outdated cost data, the team could prepare quotes using a more complete and consistent process.
The result was a dramatic improvement in quote turnaround, giving the manufacturer the ability to respond sooner and compete for more work.
Greater Engineering Capacity Without Unnecessary Overhead
Because project information could move from quoting into engineering and manufacturing, shop-floor personnel no longer had to recreate the same information from drawings, spreadsheets, and paper files. Standardized manufacturing processes and reusable data gave the team a stronger starting point for every job.
Engineers could accomplish more in less time, reduce repetitive work, and focus their expertise on the projects and exceptions that genuinely required engineering judgment.
The Business Impact
By bringing quoting, engineering, and manufacturing together, Harness Suite helped the manufacturer:
- Shorten quote turnaround
- Improve labor-cost accuracy
- Reduce pricing guesswork
- Respond faster to customer opportunities
- Increase engineering productivity
- Eliminate repeated data entry and process reinvention
- Improve the flow of information to the shop floor
- Pursue more work without adding the same level of overhead
Faster responses helped the company win more opportunities, while stronger cost visibility supported better margins. The combined gains in quoting speed, engineering efficiency, and manufacturing readiness allowed the investment in Harness Suite to pay for itself many times over.
“Turn complex customer data into accurate quotes, and awarded jobs into production-ready information.”
See What Harness Suite Could Do for Your Quoting
Bring your own CSV, Creo, Zuken, or print-based job data to a working demo.