Introducing The “EASY QUOTE” System

This write up is about a system developed by the Founder and Chief Consultant at Mobritech (Z) Limited.

The system uses inter-linked Microsoft Excel spreadsheets to automatically calculate a quotation to be submitted to a customer for supplying items ordered locally and/or from overseas.

Labour and overhead costs are also calculated for installation of equipment, in case of project work.

The system has been developed from experience gain by the writer who has been a Project Engineer in the Zambian mining industry for a total of eighteen years.

The system uses executable files that generate pre-designed spread sheets which can be used for making quotations. The system may used as many times as required to generate fresh spread sheets every time a new quotation is required to be done.  

INTRODUCING THE “EASY QUOTE” SYSTEMS

I have worked as an Electrical Engineer for the Copper Mining Industry in Zambia, at six mining operation areas, for a total period of 33 years, before my retirement in January 2010.

One of my duties as an engineer, which I have done for close to 18 years, was to invite suppliers and contractors to quote for the supply of equipment to be used in the Mines.

An invitation to tender would inform interested parties to submit their quotations by a given closing date. Before any invitation to tender was given, I would get information on the prices of the equipment to be supplied from the manufacturers or from records of past projects and those kept by the supply department of the Mine.

Installations that involved a variety of equipment would require a preparation of a detailed Scope of Works. A Bill of Quantities and a Bar Chart would then be prepared for the installation of the equipment.

The Bill of Quantities would show the description of equipment, quantities, unit and total cost of the equipment. The cost of labour and other costs such as overheads would be included in the Bill of Quantities.

The preparation of these documents would involve several departments such as the engineering design, quantity surveying and the supply departments. A provisional Budgetary Price for the installation would then be calculated and used as a yardstick for determination of which supplier or contractor would be awarded the contract. The budgetary price would include a profit margin for the contractor.

Once the deadline for closing of tender submission was reached, opening of tenders would then be done by a committee of Mine officials from the contracts office, the supply department and the user department. The committee would then decide who gets the contract. The criteria used for awarding the contract were the submitted tender price, the capacity and past reputation of the contractor. From experience, the lowest tender would necessarily be chosen to do the job.

However, there were cases where the lowest tender price was not chosen because of glaring anomalies in the quoted prices in the Bill of Quantities. There were cases where a supplier or contractor would fail to meet the obligations submitted in the tender.

In order to avoid such a situation, the engineer in charge of the project from the user department was expected to submit a budgetary price for the contract. The engineer from the user department prepared a provisional budgetary cost for the contract.

This would then be checked by other departments such as the finance department with the help of the quantity surveying department. One of the challenges that I faced as a project engineer in the earlier years on the job was the preparation of a budgetary price for a project.

With the help of experienced engineers and other departments one was able to prepare a budget for a project. Large capital projects, involving multi skills, would involve consulting companies outside the Mine to prepare the tender documents.

After my retirement from the Mines, I found myself with the task of working with suppliers and contractors to the Mines to prepare quotations for tendering purposes. When I was working for one company after retirement, I had one assistant who used to prepare quotations. He had been doing the job for close to eight years.

One setback he had was that he used to take an average of two shifts to prepare any quotation. After enquiring from him why he took that long to submit a quotation I learnt, with astonishment, that despite having a desktop computer in his office, he had been using a desktop electronic calculator to do the quotations!

Over the years he had become very proficient and he had mastered on how to use this calculator very well. He was able to add up figures faster than I could do with the machine.

At one time there were five enquiries from one of the newly formed mining companies whose closing date for the submission of tenders was seven days! This was a very big challenge for the assistant. At his rate of preparing previous quotations, it was going to take him fifteen days of continuous work. For him to beat the deadline it meant long hours of work of more than fourteen hours per day. After the quotations were submitted, at the expense of the assistant’s comfort, it was decided at a Management meeting that all personnel in the Sales Department should be trained on how to prepare quotations.

The training did not go very well because most of the personnel were young people who were used to working with pre-prepared Computer spread sheets in order to input data rather than using manual input electronic Calculators.

After studying the method that was used by the assistant, I came up with a system that could do the same calculations on a single Microsoft Excel spread sheet. The only setback was that it took me sometime to have this method to be accepted by the Management, most of who were not very familiar with computers and are jokingly called BBCs (Born Before Computers)!

I managed to teach two young technicians who found it very helpful. The assistant, who is a BBC, continued using the electronic Calculator!

After I left the services of the company I had a closer look at the system and realised that the reason for not accepting it by my previous employers could have been that a lot of people, who were not used to work with spread sheets, would not know how to read information stored in an Excel Workbook in multiple tabs.

I therefore modified the system so that each stage of preparing the quotation is stored in single tab spread sheets whose calculating formulas are related via links. This gave birth to what is called the “Easy Quote” system, which is the subject of this write up.

I have developed four systems as follows:-

1) The Easy Quote Forex – This is targeted for suppliers whose main business is to import goods from overseas suppliers using foreign exchange for selling to their customers in Zambia.

 2) The Easy Quote Local - This is targeted for suppliers whose main business is to purchase goods from local suppliers using Kwacha for selling to their customers in Zambia.

3) The Easy Quote Deluxe - This is targeted for suppliers whose main business is to purchase goods both from overseas and local suppliers using Kwacha and foreign exchange for selling to their customers in Zambia. This system is really a combination of the Easy Quote Forex and the Easy Quote Local.

4) The Easy Quote Project - This is targeted for suppliers and contractors whose main business is to purchase goods both from overseas and local suppliers using Kwacha and foreign exchange for supplying and installation of equipment for their customers in Zambia. This system is really a combination of the Easy Quote Deluxe and a package that calculates the labour and overhead costs for a given project.

5) The Easy Quote Demo - This is a demonstration package that works on the principle of the Easy Quote Forex system. The system is meant to demonstrate to potential customers who would like to adopt the Easy Quote systems into their businesses. As its name implies, its usefulness is limited. It is meant to be a training tool for the other systems.

 I have prepared manuals on how to use the first three systems mentioned above. These manuals, the Easy Quote Demo and a copy of this write up maybe downloaded for review at the following link:-

http://sdrv.ms/PQTyoW

 I do not intend to prepare a manual for the Easy Quote Project system for now because it is very similar to the other three. An in-house training session could be arranged for customers interested to learn how the four systems work. As is applicable to any new product, the systems are subject to redesign and improvement from time to time. I am open to any comments and advice on how the systems could be improved.

For more information about the systems and how to purchase them please send enquiries to any of the following e-mails:-

m.nasilele@gmail.com
henry.nasilele@mobritech.com
sales@mobritech.com

Alternatively, an enquiry could be done by filling a form at the “Contact Me” page on our company website or at:-

http://henrynasilele.weebly.com/contact-me.html

Henry Musialela Nasilele (B.Eng., R.Eng, MEIZ)
Founder and Principal Consultant,
Mobritech (Z) Limited.
Nkana East Kitwe
Republic of Zambia
1st May 2012

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