Cabinet Quoting System Automates Style-Based Pricing
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current quoting systems for housing components, such as cabinets, require manual manipulation and recreation of pricing for outsourced items due to varying prices by wood species, lacking efficient storage and management of pricing variations across different styles and options.
Innovation Solution
A quoting system with a product database that allows users to enter product and service identifiers once, enabling pricing assignment by style or wood species, and automatically adjusts prices for outsourced items across all relevant quotes, with changes stored globally or per quote.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If manual manipulation of quote output is used to reflect prices by style, then pricing accuracy for different wood species is improved, but user effort and time consumption increase
Solution Approach 1:
The system automatically adjusts prices for outsourced items based on the selected cabinet style without requiring manual intervention. The pricing information is stored in the database and automatically retrieved and applied to the quote, allowing the system to serve itself rather than requiring continuous manual manipulation by the user.
Solution Approach 2:
Pricing information for different wood species and cabinet styles is pre-stored in the database before the quoting process. When a user creates a quote and selects a cabinet style, the system automatically retrieves the pre-stored pricing information and applies it, eliminating the need for manual price entry or adjustment during the quoting process.
2Adaptability or versatility
If pricing is manually entered for each style, then pricing flexibility is improved, but system complexity and error potential increase
Solution Approach 1:
The system stores pricing information as parameters associated with different cabinet styles and wood species in the database. When a quote is generated, the system automatically changes the price parameter based on the selected style, providing pricing flexibility without requiring manual system configuration or increasing user complexity.
Solution Approach 2:
The system creates a standardized template for quote generation that automatically copies and applies the correct pricing information based on the selected cabinet style. This template approach maintains pricing flexibility across different styles while simplifying the system operation to a straightforward selection process rather than manual manipulation.
3Device complexity
If pricing is not stored and must be recreated, then system simplicity is maintained, but productivity and efficiency decrease
Solution Approach 1:
Pricing information is pre-stored in the database before quoting is needed. This preliminary storage of pricing data eliminates the need to recreate pricing information during each quote generation, significantly improving productivity while adding minimal system complexity through a straightforward database storage structure.
Solution Approach 2:
The system automatically retrieves and applies pricing information from the database during quote generation without requiring manual recreation of pricing data. This self-service mechanism maintains system simplicity by using a straightforward database lookup process while dramatically improving quoting efficiency by eliminating repetitive manual pricing entry.
Data Source
AI summary
A quoting system for housing components, especially cabinets, includes a product database storing a plurality of product identifiers for different cabinet components, each having an associated cabinet style. The database also includes identifiers for products and/or services that are outsourced. The user need enter the description and product or service identifiers only once for an entire quote. The user can assign the pricing by style (or wood species).