A Tier-1 Automotive Seating Manufacturer

How Scalex Enabled 5x Faster RFQ Turnaround for a Tier-1 Automotive Seating Manufacturer

The customer is a European Tier-1 manufacturer serving the automotive and commercial seating industry. Its quotation process involved complex BOMs, multiple product variants, manufacturing inputs, supplier pricing, and coordination across engineering, procurement, costing, management, and sales. As the complexity of RFQs increased, the client needed a faster and more structured way to manage costing, approvals, and quotations while improving visibility into costs and margins.

Product Engineering,Data & AI,Manufacturing

Challenges Faced by the Client

Before partnering with Scalex, the client faced significant operational challenges in managing its quotation process:

Fragmented BOM & Costing Data: Multiple spreadsheets, versions, cost inputs, and supplier quotations made it difficult to maintain a consistent source of truth and trace how costs contributed to the final quotation.

Slow RFQ Cycles: Preparing quotations required extensive coordination across engineering, manufacturing, procurement, costing, management, and sales. Manual processes and approval cycles resulted in RFQ lead times of more than 21 days.

Solutions Provided by Scalex

Scalex developed a centralized digital BOM-to-quote platform to streamline the quotation process and improve collaboration across teams.

Centralized BOM & Costing Platform: A common platform was created to manage BOM structures, costing inputs, revisions, and quotation data, reducing dependency on disconnected spreadsheets.

Role-Based Collaboration: Engineering, manufacturing, costing, procurement, management, and sales could contribute to the quotation process through role-specific workflows and access controls.

Automated Costing & Approvals: Automated costing capabilities were introduced for key manufacturing components, while structured revision and approval workflows helped improve control over quotation changes.

Cost Visibility & Traceability: The platform provided greater visibility into cost drivers and enabled costing information to be associated with the relevant owner, revision, and timestamp.

Results Achieved

The solution was evaluated through a six-week parallel run, delivering measurable improvements in RFQ turnaround, cost visibility, and quotation control.

5x Faster RFQ Turnaround: RFQ cycle time was reduced from approximately 21 days to 4 days, significantly accelerating the quotation process.

Reduced Margin Leakage: The pilot helped identify previously overlooked costs associated with manufacturing processes, cycle times, and tooling, giving the client greater visibility into potential margin leakage.

Improved Cost Traceability: The centralized workflow provided greater visibility into costing inputs, revisions, approvals, and the factors contributing to the final quotation.

Conclusion

Scalex helped transform a highly manual, spreadsheet-driven quotation process into a structured digital BOM-to-quote workflow. What was once a bottleneck became a faster and more transparent process, enabling teams to respond to RFQs with greater speed, visibility, and control.

The six-week pilot reduced RFQ cycle time from 21 days to 4 days, while improving cost visibility and helping identify previously overlooked manufacturing and tooling costs. This engagement demonstrates how purpose-built manufacturing technology can drive operational efficiency and stronger business outcomes.