Manufacturers of custom products have to balance complex customization with the fast pace of modern manufacturing. Traditional manufacturing processes, often set up for standard products, can be slow with a high degree of manual input. For manufacturers of custom products this can have a big impact on manufacturing lead times, resulting in inefficient workflows and longer production cycles. To remain competitive and maintain customer satisfaction, manufacturers need to ensure that production lead times are as efficient as possible.
CPQ for manufacturing technology enables manufacturers of custom products to streamline complex design processes, make workflows between teams more efficient, and reduce lead times.
Challenges of manufacturing and selling configurable products
Manufacturers producing configurable products face numerous challenges, from the complexity of customization to the customer demand for quick production turnaround times. Manual preparation of quotes and technical documentation is slow and open to errors and managing approvals and order progress can be time-consuming. Coordination between design, sales, and production teams can also have a big impact on lead times. The dialogue between teams for the design, selling, and manufacturing of custom products can be complicated and lengthy, with lots of back-and-forth communication.
Manufacturing errors and unplanned downtime are potentially very costly. According to Forbes, downtime, both planned and unplanned, can account for between 1% and 10% of a company’s available production time. Similarly, The Siemens 2024 The True Cost of Downtime report estimates that downtime could cost an SME manufacturer up to $150,000 per hour.
What is CPQ for Manufacturing?
CPQ for Manufacturing (CPQM) is a digital solution that enables manufacturers to manage complex product configurations, pricing strategies, and quoting processes. CPQM enables businesses to build and manage their custom configure, price, and quote solution that automatically generates documents and data for sales and manufacturing.
A configure, price, quote (CPQ) solution helps manufacturers meet the increasing demand for custom products, faster and with greater accuracy, to gain a competitive edge.
CPQ solutions are built on rules, workflow, and user-friendly interface. They typically integrate with other company systems, such as CRM, ERP, e-commerce platforms, and other business applications, to enhance functionality.
The role of CPQ in reducing lead times
Automating product configuration
Design rules built into CPQ solutions ensure that all configuration options are valid and manufacturable, even for the most complex of custom products.
Manufacturers of custom products see huge benefits from automation in product configuration, automatically producing the sales and manufacturing documents and data for each custom variant. This enables shorter sales cycles and improves lead times and customer satisfaction.
Automated product configuration also enables smoother collaboration between teams and faster design completion. Subsequently, streamlined workflows reduce design lead times for custom products enabling manufacturers to get products to market quicker.
Real-time quoting
CPQ reduces the time it takes to prepare custom quotes by standardizing processes and automatically creating accurate quote documents.
Rules-based pricing functionality automatically applies the correct pricing, relevant discounts, or surcharges, no matter how complex the configuration. Quotes are automatically generated based on customers’ unique configurations, without the need for any manual input.
This streamlined process frees up design engineers to focus on new product development, enables sales teams to provide higher volumes of accurate quotes, and reduces overall lead times.
Streamlining production workflows
One of the key strengths of CPQ is its ability to automate and streamline processes, reduce bottlenecks, and improve lead times. By eliminating manual validation steps and simplifying complex procedures, CPQ significantly increases efficiency and throughput, enabling accurate order-specific manufacturing data and documents to be created automatically.
The automation of workflows reduces manual input, enabling tasks to move seamlessly from one stage to the next, minimizing delays, errors, and re-work. Team members are automatically notified when tasks are assigned to them, improving task completion rates and reducing overall lead times.
Reducing lead times with DriveWorks CPQ for Manufacturing
DriveWorks CPQ for Manufacturing is used by thousands of businesses worldwide to:
- Reduce sales lead time and respond to customer inquiries faster
- Automatically generate all of the documents and data to sell and manufacture complex configurable products
- Improve customer experience with guided selling and 3D visualization
- Ensure accuracy from order to delivery
With DriveWorks design automation and CPQ technology, A-Line Building Systems have reduced errors and saved time.
Dolphin Solutions’ sales process is cut down from days and weeks to minutes and hours since the implementation of DriveWorks design automation and CPQM technology.
Building a DriveWorks CPQ solution enabled Autex Acoustics Ltd to reduce their quote cycle times and enabled their sales team to sell more.
Request a CPQ demo with a technical specialist
A CPQ demo with a DriveWorks technical specialist will enable you to see the software in a more detailed way, guided by a technical expert with in-depth CPQ knowledge. Talking to a real person helps to bring technology to life and see how your business could benefit from a CPQ solution. It’s also a great opportunity to ask any questions you may have and focus on any particular areas you’d like to learn more about.
