68 → 35
Days to get paid · Parts and engineering suppliers to primes
The quote that went out Friday
Quote faster, ship on time and get paid on time, so the prime keeps sending you work.
A composite, built from suppliers like yours. Not a named client.
- The problem, $1.9M, Earned money waiting in portals
- The project, SBK rebuilds quoting, shop paperwork and invoicing so the work moves as fast as your machines.
- The outcome, 35, Days to get paid
Monday, 8 a.m. A prime emails a request for quote on 40 machined housings, a $46,000 order, due Thursday. The estimator opens last year's spreadsheet and starts rebuilding the costing line by line. He's also working three other quotes. Friday afternoon, the quote goes out. The work went to another shop on Thursday.
Picture a 60-person machine shop with $10M a year in sales, most of it to two defense primes. Quotes took four days and six estimator hours each. Orders were keyed into three systems before they reached the floor. Jobs ran on paper travelers, and status meant walking the floor. Quality packets were built by hand, and shipments waited for them. Invoices went into the prime's portal by hand and took 68 days to pay. 18% of shipments were late, and the prime's scorecard noticed.
What SBK rebuilt
SBK mapped the path from request for quote to cash in the bank. Two costs stood out. Late quotes lost orders before any work began. Slow paperwork kept about $1.9M of earned money waiting in the primes' portals. The rebuild drafts each quote's costing from the shop's own job history, and the estimator checks the margin. A won order flows to the floor once. Job status is live from the machines and stations. The quality packet builds as parts pass inspection. The invoice goes out the moment the parts ship.
What moved
Four in five quotes went out within a day, up from one in five. Estimators spent 1.5 hours a quote instead of six. On-time shipments rose from 82% to 96%. Cash arrived in 35 days instead of 68, which freed about $900k. The shop moved up the prime's scorecard, and the next request for quote came sooner.
| Measure | Before | After |
|---|---|---|
| Quotes out in a day | 1 in 5 | 4 in 5 |
| On-time shipments | 82% | 96% |
| Days to get paid | 68 | 35 |
| Estimator hours a quote | 6 | 1.5 |
A problem like this one?
David from SBK replies within one working day.