The date you simulate to win an order should be the date you run it by. EDGEBIC by User Solutions computes a quote's delivery date against real finite capacity, and when the order is accepted that simulated plan becomes the live schedule, with no second keying and no gap between what was sold and what gets built. The promise and the plan are the same object.
This post explains how a quote is simulated, how it converts into a live order, and where the honest limits of a simulated promise sit. For the accuracy side of the same feature, see how EDGEBIC improves quote accuracy. This post sits under the EDGEBIC results guide.
The Gap Between the Quote and the Job
In most shops the quote and the job are two separate acts of data entry. Sales builds a quote from a lead-time rule or a spreadsheet, promises a date, and wins the order. Then someone in planning rebuilds the job from the product routing, schedules it against real capacity, and discovers that the promised date and the achievable date do not match.
The cost of that gap is paid twice. Once in clerical time, re-keying operations and hours that already existed on the quote. And once in credibility, because the customer was told a date that the plant now cannot hit. The second cost is the expensive one.
Simulating Against Real Capacity
EDGEBIC closes the gap by making the quote a real scheduling run. When you quote a product and quantity, the engine pulls the product's bill of routing (the same operations, work centers, and hours the shop floor plan uses) and simulates it against the plant's current finite load.
The simulation returns concrete numbers, not a rule of thumb:
- an estimated start date and an estimated end date,
- the total hours the job will consume,
- whether the requested delivery date is achievable against today's load.
Because this is a what-if run, it reserves nothing and disturbs no live job. You can simulate a quote, adjust the quantity, and simulate again to see how the date moves, all without touching the floor plan. See how what-if simulation wins profitable rush orders for using the same engine under time pressure.
The key property is that the date comes from the same engine that builds the production schedule. It is not a parallel estimate that will later be contradicted. It is the schedule, run early.
From Won Quote to Live Order
When the customer accepts, the simulated plan is the seed of the live order. The routing, the hours, and the promised dates carry across, so accepting a quote does not start a fresh round of order entry. The work already done to win the order is the work that runs it.
The practical effect on a typical order desk:
| Step | Without simulation continuity | With simulation continuity |
|---|---|---|
| Build the quote | Lead-time guess or spreadsheet | Routing simulated against real load |
| Promise a date | A number sales hopes fits | The date the plan actually finishes |
| Win the order | Re-key routing and hours into a job | Simulated plan becomes the live order |
| Schedule it | Discover the promise may not fit | Already scheduled; refine as needed |
The re-keying step disappears, and with it the class of errors where the operation list on the job quietly differs from the one that was priced. What was sold and what gets built are the same routing because they were never two documents.
Why the Promise Holds Up
A promise date is only worth something if it survives contact with the plant. A simulated date survives because it was tested against the constraint that actually decides delivery: finite capacity. If the plant is full through next week, the simulated date reflects that, and sales sees the real number before committing. This is the difference between finite and infinite capacity scheduling expressed at the quote desk. Infinite-capacity thinking promises a lead time. Finite-capacity thinking promises a date the plant can reach.
That honesty compounds. A customer who is told a realistic date and then receives the order on it learns to trust the next quote, which is the quiet engine behind repeat business.
The Honest Limits
A simulated date is a realistic promise, not a locked slot. EDGEBIC tests the quote against the load at the moment you simulate. It does not fence off capacity the way a hard capacity reservation would. If you have several important quotes outstanding, simulate the one you are about to commit again, because the load may have shifted since the first run.
The routing has to be right. The simulation is exactly as good as the bill of routing behind the product. A missing operation or an optimistic hours figure produces an optimistic date. The quote is a mirror of your master data, not a correction to it.
Winning the order does not freeze the world. Other orders keep arriving, and a later reschedule places the new job among them. Completed work is never moved, so nothing already run is disturbed, but the not-yet-started remainder of a quoted job is scheduled alongside everything else that came in after it.
It does not replace a conversation about capacity. When every quote comes back with a date further out than sales wants, the answer is a real decision about overtime, a second shift, or turning work away. The simulation surfaces that choice honestly. It does not make it for you.
Want to see one of your real quotes simulated against your current load, then watch it convert into a live plan? Bring a product routing and an open quantity to a demo, and we will show the promised date and the schedule as the same number.
Yes. In EDGEBIC, a quote is simulated against real finite capacity, and when the order is won the same simulated plan becomes the starting schedule rather than being re-keyed from scratch. The delivery date you promised was computed the same way the shop floor plan is computed, so the number you gave the customer and the number the plant works to are the same number. That continuity is the whole point of simulating against real capacity instead of a lead-time guess.
Quote simulation avoids double entry by reusing the product routing and the same scheduling engine at quote time. You do not build a quote in one place and rebuild the job in another. The product's bill of routing drives both, so accepting the quote turns the simulated run into a live order without re-typing the operations, hours, or dates. The saving is real clerical time and, more importantly, the removal of a re-keying error between what was sold and what gets built.
It is a realistic promise, not a hard capacity reservation. EDGEBIC computes the date against the plant's actual load at the moment you simulate, so it reflects real finite capacity rather than a fixed lead time. It does not lock a capacity slot the way a hard capacity-reservation system would. If several quotes are outstanding, simulate the important one again before you commit, because the load it was tested against may have changed.
Expert Q&A: Deep Dive
Q: Sales quotes a date from a lead-time rule of thumb, then we find out at scheduling that it never fit. How does simulating the quote stop that?
A: A lead-time rule of thumb is a guess about an average shop, not a statement about your shop this week. Simulating the quote runs the product's real routing against the plant's current finite load and returns the date that plan actually finishes. If the plant is full, the simulated date moves out and sales sees it before promising, not after. In the documented flow, the estimated start and end dates and the total hours all come from the same engine that builds the floor schedule, so the moment the quote is accepted those dates become the job's dates. There is no second, slower reality waiting to contradict the promise.
Q: We win maybe one quote in four. Isn't simulating every quote a waste of scheduling effort?
A: Simulating a quote is a what-if run, not a commitment, so it costs no capacity and disturbs no live job. The three you do not win simply never convert, and nothing has to be cleaned up. The one you do win converts without re-entry, which is where the effort pays back: the routing, hours, and promised dates move straight into the live plan. You are not doing scheduling work four times to win once. You are doing a fast simulation four times and saving the re-keying once, on the order that matters.
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Manufacturing Software Experts
User Solutions has been developing production planning and scheduling software for manufacturers since 1991. Our team combines 35+ years of manufacturing software expertise with deep industry knowledge to help factories optimize their operations.
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