How to Simulate a Delivery Date for a Quote in EDGEBIC

To simulate a delivery date in EDGEBIC by User Solutions you select a saved quote, click Simulate, and read the estimated start and end dates that come back. The simulation runs the real finite-capacity scheduling engine against your current live load, reads off the dates and costs, and throws the temporary job away. Nothing on your production schedule moves. This gives you a promise date grounded in the shop you actually have, not the routing math alone.

For why the simulation is honest by design, read quote simulation explained. This task is documented behavior of EDGEBIC; the full task library is in the how-to hub. If the quote does not exist yet, start with how to create a quote. For the same idea applied to the whole plan rather than one quote, see how to simulate a schedule without committing it.

Before You Start

• The quote is saved (it has an identity in the grid), has a Product (BOR): selected, and a Quantity: above zero.
• The product's work centers have hourly rates and real shift calendars, so the returned costs and dates mean something.
• You know the quote's Scheduling Direction:, because it changes what the target date means (covered below).

Step 1: Select the Quote

On the Quote tab, tick the Select checkbox on the quote you want to simulate. If you leave every checkbox unticked, ▶️ Simulate runs on every not-yet-simulated quote in the current filter, which is the bulk path. To get the single-quote results window, keep exactly one eligible quote in scope.

Step 2: Click Simulate

Click ▶️ Simulate. The engine creates a temporary, invisible job for the quoted product and quantity, schedules it against your current real capacity (every existing job keeps its reserved hours, every holiday and shift boundary applies), reads the resulting window, prices the allocated work hours, and then deletes the temporary job.

Step 3: Read the Result

The grid columns Start Date, End Date, Est. Hours, Est. Cost, Profit, and Margin % fill in. For a single-quote run, the Quote Details - Simulation Results window opens automatically. Its Summary tab shows Start Date:, End Date:, Lead Time:, Total Hours:, Total Cost:, Sales Price:, Profit:, and Profit Margin: together.

Simulating several quotes at once

To simulate a batch, apply a filter (for example Draft only, or one customer), leave every checkbox unticked, and click ▶️ Simulate. The system simulates every not-yet-simulated quote in the filter, one at a time to avoid database contention, showing a running "Simulating quote N of M" message. A summary then reports how many succeeded, how many failed, and the first few failure messages. To force a re-simulation of a quote that is already simulated, tick its row before running: a checked row is re-simulated regardless of its status, overwriting the earlier result.

Direction Changes What the Date Means

The Target Start Date: plays two roles depending on the quote's Scheduling Direction:.

To answer "can you deliver by September 1?" directly, set Scheduling Direction: to Backward and Target Start Date: to that date. If the simulated End Date comes back after it, the backward plan did not fit and the engine fell back to a forward run, which is your "no, and here is when it would land" answer in one step. The full direction rules live in forward vs backward scheduling.

What Changes When You Save

The simulation itself writes nothing to the production schedule. It does stamp the quote's estimated dates, hours, and costs, marks the quote as simulated, and auto-fills Unit Price: only if it was zero at the time. Your Gantt, work-center load, and existing jobs are untouched. Because the results are a point-in-time snapshot, a later change to rates or capacity makes them stale.

How to Check It Worked

Confirm the Start Date, End Date, and Est. Hours columns are now populated on the row. Compare Estimated End Date to the customer's requested date: on a Forward quote you compare the end date to the wanted date yourself; on a Backward quote, an end date on or before the target date means the finish-by promise fits.

Worked Example: 200 Units of Widget-A

Acme wants 200 units of Widget-A, delivery wanted by September 1, and today is July 16. You created the quote with Target Start Date: July 20 and Scheduling Direction: Forward. You tick the row and click ▶️ Simulate. The engine allocates the routing against current load:

The result: Est. Hours 151.50 and Est. Cost $9,230 (labor $7,930 plus material $1,300). Around the existing load on the day shift, the window comes back Start July 20, End August 14, a 25-day lead time. The 101 hours on CNC-Mill-1 make it the bottleneck that shapes the finish.

Now check the date. The simulated end, August 14, is well before the wanted September 1, so you can quote it. To confirm directly, flip Scheduling Direction: to Backward with Target Start Date: September 1 and re-simulate: the engine right-aligns and reports the latest safe start, and an end on or before September 1 confirms the fit. If the shop had been busier and the forward run had returned an end past September 1, that would have been your honest signal to test a capacity scenario or negotiate the date.

Common Mistakes and Gotchas

• Missing routing stops the run. If the product has no Bill of Routing, the simulation fails with a "No Bill of Routing (BOR) found" message. Build the routing first, then re-simulate.
• The simulation runs at 100% utilization. This is independent of a real order's utilization setting. A live schedule at a lower utilization takes longer than the simulation suggests, so factor the gap into a tight promise.
• A stale simulation is fiction. Costs and dates are snapshots. When work-center rates or capacity change, the quote view shows a banner asking you to refresh and re-run. Do that before you send the quote.
• The forward simulation does not chase the requested date. It schedules forward from today, so an overloaded shop pushes the end date past the requested date on purpose. Use the Backward direction for a true finish-by check.

With a real promise date in hand, the next moves are usually pricing it with markup and, when the date does not fit, testing a what-if scenario.