How ECM Went from Weeks to Same-Day Quoting on Complex Wire Harness RFQs

Introduction

Electri-Cord Manufacturing (ECM) started over 26 years ago as a power cord company and has since grown into a full-service contract manufacturer producing wire harnesses, panel assemblies, box builds, and high-level assemblies. With manufacturing facilities across the U.S. and Mexico, ECM serves customers in industrial, medical, energy, technology, defense, and automotive markets.
Mike Vargeson joined ECM as an engineer more than 26 years ago and has spent his career growing with the company. Today, he manages estimating within the Commercial Operations Division, where a team of four handles all quoting for new work coming into the business.

The Challenge

 A manual process that couldn't keep up 

Before Cableteque, ECM's estimating team relied on Excel and a homegrown proprietary system. Getting material costs required manually reaching out to suppliers and distributors via email and phone, then waiting for a quote to go out. Turnaround times ranged from a couple of days to a couple of weeks, depending on complexity. On fast-turnaround RFQs, the team often had no choice but to walk away.

"We would typically walk away from those in the past because we just didn't have the resources to turn that."

ECM had also evaluated other quoting tools, but kept running into the same problem: competing platforms pushed their own raw material lines and supplier relationships. For a company that sources across multiple distribution channels, that was a non-starter.

"They were pushing their own raw materials or their own product lines, and we didn't like that. It meant we had to steer in their direction."

And the volume of manual outreach was creating quote fatigue with distributors. When ECM sent pricing requests constantly, suppliers didn't prioritize the responses.

"When you get that many requests, they aren't as important anymore. Our suppliers weren't coming back as quickly as they could have been."

The Solution

A platform built for how cable harness companies actually work

ECM chose Cableteque because it matched how their team already operated, without forcing a shift to preferred vendors or locked-down supply channels. The platform pulls live pricing across the full range of distributors ECM already works with, replicating what they were doing in Excel, but automatically and in real time.

"It was a great fit for Electric Cord. Not much learning for us. For what it did and compared to what we were doing, it was very similar."

Real-time pricing changed the refresh workflow entirely. Instead of sending requests and waiting, estimators can now re-cost on demand.

"If we want an update, we go in and hit refresh or re-cost, versus our old process, which would have required a resource to go back out and send all those emails back out and follow up."

ECM also adopted Cableteque's AI BOM creation features. The AI reads drawing notes as well as the BOM itself, catching line items that might otherwise be missed.

"AI is asking you some questions where it looks in the notes, or it might see something on the print and say, hey, you do have a label required here. Sometimes you glance over that thing when you're doing it manually and just forget about it."

The Results

Speed that changes what you can compete for

The most visible change has been turnaround time. ECM's team now regularly completes quotes the same day they're received. Complex quotes that once took multiple weeks now move in one to two days when components are available in the supplier database.

"It's not uncommon to do a quote on the same day that we receive it."

More importantly, that speed has expanded the work ECM can pursue. Fast-turn, multi-level RFQs with three-day deadlines, jobs the team used to decline, are now in play.

"We used to turn down a lot of RFQs. Now we just turn those in one to two days, and we can compete in those types of RFQs. More swings at the plate potentially get you more base hits."

Supplier relationships improved

Eliminating manual outreach had an unexpected side effect: suppliers noticed. Several reached out to ask what had changed, and when ECM explained, the response was positive. A few suppliers that are not yet on the platform have asked to join.

"Some of our suppliers have even reached out to us and said, ' Hey, what's going on? We haven't heard from you guys in a while. We explained to them what's going on, and they were happy about it."

Estimators have time for customer conversations

With less time spent on BOM setup and pricing lookups, ECM's estimating engineers are now doing something they didn't have bandwidth for before: reaching out to customers and internal sales teams to go deeper on projects.

"It allows them to now reach out to customers or our internal sales teams and discuss the project, which is a big thing for us. We want to be involved with the customer; we want to be involved with the project. It has opened those doors to all of our estimating engineers."

Strong adoption from day one

Cableteque went in without resistance. Mike credits both a younger team that was already enthusiastic about AI and a low learning curve. The AI features were put to the test immediately.

"They're trying to stump it. They're trying to make it do something goofy that they can't trust. I've heard nothing but good things."

"It's not uncommon to do a quote in the same day that we receive it. We used to turn down a lot of RFQs that were not high-confidence. Now we just turn those in one to two days, and we can compete in those types of RFQs."

Mike Vargeson, Estimating Manager, Electri-Cord Manufacturing

Looking Ahead

ECM's next strategic priority is already taking shape: now that speed is solved, the focus shifts to targeting. The goal is to ensure the sales team brings in the right types of RFQs, knowing the estimating team can handle significantly more volume than before.

"The speed is always going to be the thing. And I think what will happen in the next strategy cycle is it will start going out to the sales team to make sure they're bringing in the right types of quotes because we know we can do them quickly and accurately."

Mike also sees a structural advantage in using a platform that continues to grow without requiring internal maintenance resources.

"A lot of companies use homegrown software, which means now you have to maintain it. Cableteque is hand-in-hand with our company growing, and it takes a lot off my desk as well as our IT department's desk."