It never fails to amaze us how customers wind up using our solutions in ways we never even considered. Take into consideration that CalcuQuote is a pretty niche suite of products… our original tagline was “By EMS for EMS”. We know the electronics industry, so when we design new products & features, we do so based on deep industry knowledge and close consideration from our customers.
But as much as we design our products for specific uses … our customers are always surprising us with how they do things we never expected.
PortCQ
Designed for: Customer facing quote portal
End customers can upload their own bill of materials (BOM), answer some questions, and be provided with an instant, self-service, quote.
We expected customers to use this for:
- Lead generation
- Quick-turn quote/purchase for NPI/Proto shops
The Surprise: One customer, who works primarily with repeat customers doing lots of iterative work, utilizes PortCQ and requires his customers to access the portal through a login for only his customers’ engineers. These end customers use the service from their contract manufacturer to check their design for long lead times and availability issues during the design phase. This way the engineers can easily change the footprint of a board and head off supply chain challenges before they ever start. The value this brings to end customers can be a strategic differentiator.
Bonus surprise: Another customer implemented PortCQ to allow their end customers to push their BOMs into QuoteCQ (CalcuQuote’s RFQ Management Software) which gives them access to do a deeper dive on their information, process and quote. This exchange allows for a conversation with their customer about what they could not source, recommended design changes and more. Another value added service to put you above the rest!
SearchCQ:
This handy little widget is built into everything here at CQ. You probably already have access (did you even know that? Ask your Account Manager!)
Designed for: Single/multi part search that can deliver useful data like:
- Current stock levels
- Market
- Quote history on where this quote has been approved
- Alternate suggestions
- Health of a Manufacturer Part Number
The Surprise: A customer had a summer intern who realized that running out of a part on the floor is a HUGE problem bringing everything to a screeching halt. He imported the SearchCQ widget onto the shop floor iPad. When a part shortage occurred, he could quickly scan the barcode into the iPad, run SearchCQ, and instantly identify the best source for the part and push the PO directly over to purchasing for instant purchasing.
(Spoiler alert: This kid now has a well paying, full time job!)
BOM Widget:
This is also built into just about everything here at CQ. This dynamo allows you to take a mess of a spreadsheet and clean up the structure and data in the spreadsheet. It drives the import for BOM Health, SmartImport, QuoteCQ, ShopCQ, PortCQ and many other things here at CQ run… but did you know that you can gain access to this widget yourself?
The Surprise: Use the BOM Widget to import BOMs into other softwares … like your Enterprise Resource Planning(ERP) software. There are many ERPs we encounter that do not have an import option and can be supplemented by the BOM import widget. Imagine pushing in data easily and then being able to instantly assign IPNs and more.
DevCQ:
Data compressed into a single pipe. DevCQ was built to allow customers to pull data from the supplier integrations directly into a third party software ecosystem. DevCQ allows 3rd party software applications to search for a component(s) from many suppliers through a single API interface. DevCQ utilizes the API credentials of the customer to get account specific pricing.
The Surprise: A customer has a team of design engineers who work completely offline. Each day they send their list of parts to people on the other side of that air-gapped DMZ and run it overnight. In the morning, they receive a list of parts with lead times and health scores to help them design better products while working in a super secure environment.
Are you using CalcuQuote products in a way that would surprise us? How has CQ impacted your business? Let us know!