When I was starting out in providing 3d printing services I had the feeling that I worked much more that I was able to quote the customer. A lot of infrastructural and managemental tasks were eating up all of my time.
So I started thinking about that problem. I soon figured out that each customer provided the order information in a different way, leading to me needing to transform that information into what I can use internally. Some customers would send a stl file. Others would give me a hand drawing which I would then need to create a 3d model from. There even were some customers relying on a description of the thing they wanted to print out from their head. It was a mess. I would charge everyone roughly the same amount not realizing that some customers would take up a lot of more time.
I needed a constant business process which I can rely on. I started analyzing all the orders that I ever got and identified separate process “blocks”.
Based on the identified process I assigned costs to each process block. Combining different process blocks would give me a total cost for that specific order. Right now the process block would just be rough estimates of what it would cost for all the orders I already got, but would not be accurate for other orders.
This was the time I needed to implement the price estimation algorithm using help of the computer. Because I already got some experience with Excel in the last projects I did, even more complex Excel Spreadsheets, this was my go to tool for this kind of task. I began implementing the price estimation algorithm using Excel. And after two days it was ready to be used. I felt great. I can now confidently create price estimates for all kinds of different orders.
The next day I got my first order, where I would use my newly created tool. It only took me now 3 minutes in comparison to 30-60 minutes it would usually take me to create a price estimate for the customer. I was also able to point the customer in a direction of how he could bring down the price of the order. It all made sense to me now. I was able to cooperate with the customer now, instead of being his enemy.
Remember to always use the tools that are available to you to your advantage. Sometimes it is the simple things that can make a large impact.
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