Quoting & Estimation
Calculate accurate manufacturing costs and generate quotations faster.
Turn Manufacturing Data into Accurate Quotations—Faster
Preparing quotations for sheet metal and fabrication projects often requires significant manual effort. Estimators must analyse CAD files, calculate material requirements, determine cutting and processing times, apply machine rates, account for secondary operations, and prepare a competitive final price.
Almacam streamlines the complete costing and quotation process by transforming engineering and manufacturing data into accurate cost estimates. From CAD data import and part analysis to material calculation, manufacturing process costing, and quotation preparation, the solution helps companies respond to RFQs faster and with greater consistency.
By combining manufacturing knowledge with automated cost calculation, companies can reduce estimation time, standardise costing methods, improve quotation accuracy, and make faster commercial decisions.
Key features
Import 2D parts, tubes, profiles and complete assemblies to calculate manufacturing costs directly from engineering data. Estimate individual parts, batches or multi-level assemblies without manually rebuilding every component for quotation.
Use Alma’s nesting algorithms to calculate realistic material consumption instead of relying on theoretical part weight or fixed scrap percentages. Automatically estimate cutting time and material cost to build more accurate and competitive quotations.
Calculate the full manufacturing cost beyond cutting, including bending, welding, drilling and other production operations. Configure operation times, machine rates, material prices, formulas and company-specific costing rules for a consistent should-cost model.
Manage multi-level BOMs, reuse previous assemblies and operations, track quotation status and generate customer-ready reports. Configure approval workflows, user rights and validation steps, with options to connect quotation data to CAD/CAM, production management and ERP systems.
Benefits
Use cases
Move from manual spreadsheets to faster, standardized costing using CAD data, nesting-based material estimates, and predefined manufacturing rates.
Reduce multi-level assembly costing from 8–9 working days to around 2 hours by importing CAD assemblies and automating material, nesting, process, and BOM cost calculations.
Estimate complete manufacturing costs during product development and evaluate cost impact before releasing parts or assemblies for production.
Build an independent cost estimate to validate supplier quotations, support negotiations, and improve sourcing decisions.
Move from manual spreadsheets to faster, standardized costing using CAD data, nesting-based material estimates, and predefined manufacturing rates.
Reduce multi-level assembly costing from 8–9 working days to around 2 hours by importing CAD assemblies and automating material, nesting, process, and BOM cost calculations.
Estimate complete manufacturing costs during product development and evaluate cost impact before releasing parts or assemblies for production.
Build an independent cost estimate to validate supplier quotations, support negotiations, and improve sourcing decisions.
Move from manual spreadsheets to faster, standardized costing using CAD data, nesting-based material estimates, and predefined manufacturing rates.
Reduce multi-level assembly costing from 8–9 working days to around 2 hours by importing CAD assemblies and automating material, nesting, process, and BOM cost calculations.
Estimate complete manufacturing costs during product development and evaluate cost impact before releasing parts or assemblies for production.
Build an independent cost estimate to validate supplier quotations, support negotiations, and improve sourcing decisions.
FAQ
Common questions
Excel works for simple estimates, but complex quotations become dependent on manual formulas, individual experience, and repeated data entry. Almacam Quote creates a structured engineering-costing workflow using CAD data, material requirements, manufacturing processes, machine rates, and company-specific costing rules.
The impact can be substantial for large assemblies. In one practical benchmark, an assembly-level costing exercise that previously required 8–9 working days was completed in around 2 hours using an automated, CAD-driven workflow.
Yes. It is particularly relevant for job shops handling frequent RFQs and still preparing quotations manually in Excel. The software helps standardize costing, reduce repetitive engineering work, and respond to more enquiries without increasing the estimation workload proportionally.
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