A practical audit to identify dependency on key employees and scattered files.
Every manufacturer of configured products has a few people who just know. They know which connector you can put on which cable, what a special print adds to the cost, and which combinations look fine on paper but can't be built. That knowledge is one of the most valuable things a manufacturer owns. It becomes a risk when only those few people can get to it.
I ran sales at Fiber Connections, a fiber optic cable assembly manufacturer, for nearly 20 years, and since then I've talked with a lot of manufacturers about how they quote. The pattern is nearly always the same. Every salesperson has their own spreadsheet, and operations uses a different one. The rules that matter most are the ones nobody wrote down, like "if it's the purple cable, remember to add 50 cents a foot." And when the person who knows is busy, on vacation or gone, quotes wait.
This audit shows how much of your quoting depends on memory rather than on something your whole team can use. You can do it in an afternoon with the people who quote.
Step 1: Look at ten recent quotes
Pick ten quotes from the last month for configured or custom products, not catalog items. For each one, write down:
- who built it, and who they had to ask;
- which files they used: spreadsheets, ordering guides, old quotes, emails;
- how long it took from request to quote, and how much of that time was waiting;
- whether the part number, description and cost all came from the same place.
Watch the waiting. As soon as a quote leaves one person's desk and waits on somebody else, it goes into a bit of a black hole.
Step 2: Ask twelve questions
For each question, note which of these is true:
- Written down and checked: anyone on the team can find it, and someone has confirmed it's still right.
- Partly there: it's written down somewhere, but it's incomplete, out of date, or only a few people can find it.
- In someone's head: only a person can answer it.
Don't add the answers up. One answer in the last group can matter more than ten in the first.
People
- If your most experienced quoter were away for two weeks, could the team still quote your hardest product family?
- An order arrives six months after the quote, and the person who quoted it is on vacation. Can anyone else see how it was priced?
- Could a new salesperson quote a custom configuration without asking anyone?
- Who might retire or leave in the next five years, and what do they know that isn't written down?
Rules
- Is there a written record of which options can be combined, covering things like connector and cable compatibility, polarity and breakout lengths, or does someone check from memory?
- Is the part-number logic written down, or does someone build each number by hand?
- When sales asks "can we build this?", does the answer come from a document or from a person?
- When someone approves an exception, is the answer recorded so the next person doesn't have to ask?
Pricing
- When a supplier changes a price, is there one place to update it, and does everyone know where it is?
- Would two salespeople quoting the same assembly get the same part number, description and price?
- Are judgment calls written down, such as when it's OK to drop the margin on a large order?
Files
- Do the spreadsheets used for quoting agree with each other, and with what production uses?
Step 3: List your top three dependencies
Go through the answers in the last two groups and pick the three that matter most. Weigh how often that work comes up, and what happens to customers, margin or delivery if the person who knows is unavailable. Your ten quotes help here too: if several of them waited on the same person, that's a dependency, whatever else you found.
For each one, write down four things:
| What they know | Who knows it now | Backup | Next step and date |
|---|---|---|---|
| Example: pricing cable with special print | Senior estimator | None yet | Write the pricing rule down and train a second person by the end of next month |
Give each next step an owner, and check back on the date. You should finish with three named actions, not just a list of worries.
Step 4: Start with one product family
Don't try to write everything down at once. Pick the product family where the most knowledge sits with the fewest people, and capture four things:
- Options: every choice a customer can make.
- Rules: which combinations are valid, which need review, and which can't be built.
- Part-number logic: how each choice shows up in the part number and description.
- Pricing inputs: where each cost comes from, and how margin is applied.
Then make that the place quotes for the family come from, so every new exception gets added to it instead of to someone's memory.
The goal isn't to replace the people who know your products best. It's to stop them answering the same questions forever, and to make sure what they know stays with the business.
Your next step: block an afternoon with sales, engineering, operations and whoever owns costing, work through Steps 1 to 3, and put the three next steps on the calendar.
If you'd like a second opinion on what you find, book a walkthrough and bring your three dependencies.
MORE GUIDES
Rather talk it through than read about it?
A walkthrough is thirty minutes on one product family that’s hard to quote.