With just a little effort and a decent Web connnection, you can always get a good quote online. Personally, I like this pithy little comment by Albert Einstein: "It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education."
For a tour of the Allied Machine & Engineering Corp. Insta-Quote system, click on the image above.
Granted, your curiosity likely has more to do with obtaining a quote for a customized tool. Toward that end CUTTING TOOL ENGINEERING Plus Web site talked with two such companies offering online quoting systems: Allied Machine & Engineering Corp. and Riten Industries Inc. Both companies are quick to note that they do not sell directly to their customers. Rather, they provide their customers with a Web-based system to design a custom tool and electronically request a quote.
Allied, which first launched its system in 2000, added inserts to its system and changed the name to Insta-Quote
tm in 2006, said Rob Brown, an Allied product manager. Now the Insta-Quote system is capable of more than 100,000 different custom designs, and has the ability to provide a quote in just a few minutes--online.
Each quote generated, added Brown, is weighed for manufacturing feasibility.
"So if you get a quote, we can make it," said Brown. "There are no surprises." If a custom design is entered that cannot be manufactured, the customer finds out right away.
Not only are these systems becoming more commonplace, customers for both Riten and Allied are beginning to take sophisticated Web-based features like this for granted.
Customers have come to expect as much, said Mitchell Kirby, Riten's vice president of manufacturing. In particular, he added, the new generation of engineers "who have grown up with a computer in their hands" think nothing of using the Web.
People expect "you to have a Web site," said Kirby, and "of course it has everything they need it to have."
To access the Riten Industries Inc. online quoting service pictured above, visit their Web site and click on the "Product Search" button.
While usage of the online quoting system has grown for Riten in the four years since it was first introduced, Kirby observed that they still get a lot of quote requests via phone and fax. The method someone uses, said Kirby, depends on the age of the customer. The Web-based quoting system, he added, "is just one more arrow in the quiver."
When 35 to 40 percent of the company's revenue comes from custom tooling, it's good to have as many arrows as you can.
For a related article, which appeared in the September 2007 edition of CUTTING TOOL ENGINEERING magazine, click
“Online sales of special cutting tools growing.”
