by Chris Anjel | Jul 13, 2026 | Quoting & Estimating, Shop Operations
A customer sends an RFQ. You start quoting. Halfway through, they email a revised STEP file — “small tweak, same part.” Now your nest is wrong, your cycle time is off, and your material calc is trash.Mid-quote revisions are normal in digital manufacturing....
by Chris Anjel | Jul 13, 2026 | Materials & Pricing, Quoting & Estimating
Reorders are the closest thing to free money in digital manufacturing. The customer already knows your quality. The process is proven. The material is on the shelf. Yet too many shops treat every reorder like a brand-new RFQ — digging through emails, hunting for old...
by Chris Anjel | Jul 13, 2026 | Materials & Pricing, Quoting & Estimating
Most digital manufacturers still handle RFQs the same way they did a decade ago: a customer emails a STEP file and a drawing, someone on your team opens it, runs a manual takeoff, applies a pricing spreadsheet, and emails back a PDF. The cycle takes hours or days....
by Chris Anjel | Jul 13, 2026 | Materials & Pricing, Quoting & Estimating
Every shop owner knows the moment: material costs climb, labor gets tighter, and the margins that used to feel comfortable start to shrink. You need to raise prices. The question is how to do it without watching your best customers walk to a competitor.The...
by Chris Anjel | Jul 13, 2026 | Quoting & Estimating
You sent the quote. The customer said they’d review it. Days pass — no reply. Do you email again? Call? Wait longer? Most estimators and shop owners wrestle with this daily. Follow up too soon and you look desperate. Wait too long and the job goes elsewhere.The data...
