What Is a Quote Scenario?

A quote scenario is a what-if variant stored inside a customer quote, such as standard versus expedited routing, each run through its own finite-capacity simulation to return its own lead time and cost. One quote can hold several priced options side by side, so sales can offer a real choice instead of a single take-it-or-leave-it number.

This entry defines the quote scenario and shows how it reads inside EDGEBIC by User Solutions. For the wider index of terms, see the manufacturing glossary; for the simulation that prices it, see EDGEBIC quote simulation explained; and for the order document it can convert into, see sales order line.

How it works

A quote is the offer you send a customer. It names the product, the quantity, and a requested date, and it runs a scheduling simulation to estimate a lead time and cost. A quote scenario is a child of that quote holding an alternative configuration for comparison, and each scenario re-runs the simulation with its changes applied.

Scenarios express their differences through step overrides and run-level settings. A step override can skip a step in the routing, replace a step's work center with an alternative such as an outside vendor, reorder steps, or modify a step's setup and run time. Run-level settings can add weekend shifts, set a custom start date, or apply capacity overrides. Whatever the change, the scenario re-simulates from it and reports its own numbers.

Crucially, all of this is simulation. The engine runs in memory against a temporary order and writes nothing to the live schedule. The run produces the lead time and cost, then vanishes. No capacity is committed until the quote is approved and deliberately converted into a real manufacturing order.

A concrete example

The analogy is a repair shop quoting two ways: standard service in 12 days at one price, or rush service in 7 days at a premium. The customer picks; nothing is booked until they do.

Take a quote for 200 custom brackets. The base quote simulates the standard routing and returns 12 days at a given cost. The customer asks whether you can go faster. You add an expedited scenario that swaps the bottleneck heat-treat step to an outside vendor and enables a weekend shift, then re-simulate. That scenario returns 9 days at a higher cost, because the outside vendor and the extra shift both add expense while removing the constraint.

Now the quote carries two priced options: standard at 12 days, expedited at 9 days. You present both. If the customer accepts expedited, that scenario's configuration is what converts into the live order; if they accept standard, the base does. The live plan was never touched during the comparison, and only the accepted option ever becomes real work.

How EDGEBIC uses it

In EDGEBIC, a quote scenario is a child record of a quote that stores a variant configuration, weekend shifts, a custom start date, capacity overrides, and per-step overrides that skip, replace, reorder, or retime a step. Each scenario drives an in-memory run of the scheduling engine against a temporary order, so its lead time and cost are produced by the same finite-capacity logic that plans real work, then discarded.

Cost rolls up from the simulated schedule: labor from work-center hours times rate, material from material rows or the product unit cost, with a configurable markup applied to derive a price. Because every scenario prices through the same engine, the options in one quote are directly comparable. When a quote is approved, conversion creates a real manufacturing order carrying the accepted configuration and its cost basis forward.

Each of those in-memory runs is a quote simulation: the real engine against live capacity, with the result thrown away once the numbers are read off. To see the full quote-to-order flow, read EDGEBIC quote simulation explained and EDGEBIC what-if scenarios explained. To connect a promised date to available capacity, continue with available to promise.