Quoting From a Realistic Start Date in EDGEBIC

A custom start date on a quote scenario in EDGEBIC begins the simulation from the day work can really start, not today, so the promised finish date reflects material lead time, a tied-up fixture, or a pending approval. In EDGEBIC by User Solutions, the base quote simulation assumes the job can begin at your target start, usually now. That is fine when the shop can pick the work up immediately. It is wrong when the first step cannot happen until steel arrives or a customer signs off. The custom start date is the scenario knob that fixes this, moving the whole simulation to when the job is genuinely startable.

Why the start assumption matters

A finite capacity simulation places every step in time. The estimated finish is the last step's completion, and it is anchored to where the first step begins. If the simulation starts today but the real job cannot start for eight days, the finish it reports is eight days too early, and every date after it inherits the error.

This is not a rounding problem. It is a promise you cannot keep. The math is honest given its inputs, but one input, the start, is a fiction. Quoting from today when work begins next week is the single most common way a good simulation produces a bad date. The mirror case, a finish-by date that has already gone by, cannot be planned into at all: how EDGEBIC answers a quote against a past date covers the refusal and how to read it.

The custom start date, in plain terms

A quote scenario carries two related fields: a switch to use a custom start date, and the date itself. Turn the switch on, enter the date, and run the scenario. The simulation starts the routing from that date instead of from now. Everything downstream, the work-center allocations, the queueing, the estimated end, shifts with it.

When you first create a scenario, its start date is seeded from the parent quote's estimated start, or from today if the quote has none yet. You then override it with the real date. The rest of the scenario, the routing, the quantity, the rates, stays exactly as the quote defines it. You have changed one thing: when the clock starts.

Because this is a scenario, it changes nothing on the floor. Scenario runs are in-memory and write nothing to the live schedule. For the full list of what a scenario may and may not touch, see what a scenario can and cannot change in EDGEBIC.

When to reach for it

Three situations call for a custom start date:

In each case the work content is unchanged. What changes is when the first minute of work can occur. Enter the real date and the finish moves out by exactly the delay plus the production time, which is the true shape of the promise.

A worked example

A customer wants 150 machined housings. The routing is Cutting, then Milling, then Inspection, totaling six working days of production. Your standard simulation, starting today, finishes on the 12th.

But the aluminum is on a purchase order due to land on the 9th. Quoting the 12th would be a miss by three days, because the first cut cannot happen until the metal arrives on the 9th.

You build a scenario, enable the custom start date, and set it to the 9th. On the re-run the routing begins on the 9th, and the six days of production carry the finish to the 17th. That is the date you quote, with a note that lead time runs from material receipt. It is later than the customer hoped, but it is real, and it holds. When you compare it against the requested date you are comparing a keepable promise, not an optimistic one.

If the purchase order later slips to the 11th, you change the custom start date to the 11th, re-simulate, and the finish moves to the 19th. The promise stays tied to the truth.

Custom start versus the target start

Do not confuse the scenario custom start date with the base quote's target start. On a forward quote, the requested date field acts as the target start, the day the simulation begins, and comparing the finish to it is how you read a forward promise. The scenario custom start date is a scenario-level override of that same start, used specifically to model a delay the base quote does not capture.

Both are about when work begins, and both push the finish later when you push the start later. The custom start date just lets you test a different, more realistic beginning without editing the quote itself. If you are weighing forward against a finish-by promise, forward versus backward scheduling draws the wider distinction.

The takeaway

A custom start date is how you keep a quote honest when work cannot begin today. Set it to the day material lands, the fixture frees, or the customer approves, and the simulation reports a finish that accounts for the wait instead of assuming it away. The routing and cost are unchanged; you have only told the engine the truth about the start, and because it lives on a scenario, nothing on the floor moves while you test it. See the whole flow in the EDGEBIC quoting guide, compare alternatives in comparing routing options for a quote, and see the platform in full on the EDGEBIC overview.