Your Entire Business Depends on One Person

In most wire harness and cable assembly shops, quoting is mission-critical, but it's often dependent on one or two specialists. These estimators or quoting managers have deep tribal knowledge and experience, often built up over decades. But what happens when they take a vacation, go on leave, or even leave the company?

We recently spoke to a VP of at large harness company who admitted:

“If my Director of Quoting goes on leave, I have to do it myself.”

It’s a common story. In fact, at many companies, the general manager ends up quoting on weekends just to keep new business flowing.

This isn’t just a nuisance, it’s a threat to your company’s ability to win deals and grow. If quoting stops, the front end of your business stalls.

Let’s break down the risks and how Quoteque turns quoting from a fragile, people-dependent process into a scalable, resilient system.

The Problem: Quoting Is a Single Point of Failure

Hiring and training a new estimator can take months. Not because the tools are complex—but because the knowledge lives in someone’s head.

That tribal knowledge includes:

• Customer-specific preferences

• Description-to-part conversions

• Manual part substitutions

• Hidden rules and quoting shortcuts

• Source-specific procurement habits

If your quoting lead steps away, even temporarily, you’re stuck. Quotes slow down, deals are delayed, and pipeline momentum grinds to a halt.

The Solution: A Quoting System Anyone Can Use

Quoteque replaces tribal knowledge with institutional knowledge. We give our customers a centralized, accessible quoting system that anyone on your team can use, even with limited training.

Here’s how we do it:

1. A Real System, Not Spreadsheets

Many shops still rely on dozens of Excel sheets stitched together by naming conventions, internal rules, and color-coded cells.

This creates chaos:

• Only 1-2 people know how the spreadsheets work

• Version control becomes a nightmare

• Data isn’t searchable, structured, or shared

Quoteque replaces this patchwork with a single, cloud-based system that:

• Tracks BOMs by customer and quote

• Standardizes part logic and substitutions

• Centralizes sourcing, pricing, and rules

• Enables fast onboarding of new estimators

No more “John is the only one who knows how this sheet works.”
Now any team member can quote confidently, quickly, and accurately.

2. Tribal Knowledge Becomes Part of the System

Quoteque lets you build a shared intelligence layer into your quoting process:

• Convert descriptive inputs like “blk tape” to black Tesa ¾” tape

• Apply part conversion rules like “loose piece terminal → reel”

• Store customer part numbers and automatically map them to MPNs

• Add approved alternates and part equivalencies

• Define source preferences by customer, part, or product line

All of this gets baked into the system, not stuck in a specialist’s head. So when someone steps in to quote, they’re not starting from scratch. They’re building on a library of institutional expertise.

3. PDF Import That Standardizes and Automates BOMs

Customers don’t send clean data. You often get PDFs or Excel sheets in wildly different formats—making quoting a slog.

With Quoteque, you can:

• Drag and drop multiple PDF BOMs

• Auto-extract part info, descriptions, and customer part numbers

• Convert unstructured data into standardized BOMs in minutes

• Automatically apply tribal knowledge: description → MPN, customer part → actual part, valid alternates, etc.

What used to take hours per assembly is now done in minutes, with far less effort and way more consistency.

4. Automated Material Sourcing at Scale

Once your BOM is ready, Quoteque kicks off real-time sourcing across the entire wire harness supply chain.

• Pulls in distributor data (including your contract pricing)

• Applies inventory availability in real time

• Handles wire sourcing from actual wire distributors

• Generates cost rollups across batch sizes and assemblies

The result? Your small team can quote 10x more assemblies with the same, or fewer resources. It’s like having 10 estimators for the cost of half of one.

Conclusion: Don't Let Quoting Be a Liability

If your quoting manager left tomorrow, would your business be able to function?

With Quoteque:

• Tribal knowledge becomes systematized

• BOM prep is standardized and automated

• Material sourcing is real-time and scalable

• Your entire team, not just one or two heroes, can quote with confidence

Quoting doesn’t have to be a fragile process.
With the right system in place, it becomes your competitive advantage.

Let’s future-proof your quoting team.
Reach out to see how Quoteque can turn your quoting into a scalable, resilient, and automated growth engine.