In fabrication, the quotation is the product. You are not selling a catalogue item at a list price — you are promising to turn plate, angle and pipe into a thing that does not exist yet, for a number you have to commit to before you have made it. Get the estimate wrong and you either lose the job or lose money winning it.
Most fabrication estimates are wrong in the same few ways.
Mistake 1: quoting from the last similar job
The most common estimating method in Indian fabrication is memory. “We did something like this for that customer, we quoted eighteen lakh.” The trouble is the two jobs differ in plate thickness, weld length, finish and transport, and the earlier job may itself have been quoted from memory. Errors compound quietly across years.
Mistake 2: costing material but guessing process
Material weight is easy — everybody calculates it. The process side is where estimates go wrong, because it is the part that varies most: cutting, edge preparation, rolling or bending, fit-up, welding, grinding, drilling, surface preparation and painting. Each has a rate, and each scales differently with the job. Guessing them as a single lump sum percentage of material is how a job that looked like twenty per cent margin comes in at four.
Mistake 3: forgetting the money that is not on the drawing
- Consumables — electrodes, gas, discs, primer
- Scrap and offcut you will pay for but never sell
- Transport, both inward for material and outward for delivery
- Site work, if erection or fitting is part of the scope
- Inspection and any third-party testing the customer requires
- Overhead — the shed, the crane, the electricity, the supervisor
What a proper fabrication estimate looks like
Build it in layers, so every number is visible and arguable:
Raw material (by weight, at your current landed rate) + process (cutting, bending, welding, machining, painting — each at its own rate) + consumables + labour + overhead + transport = estimated cost. Then apply margin to reach the selling price.
The value of building it this way is not the total. It is that when a customer pushes back on price, you can see which layer to negotiate — and when the job is finished, you can compare actual against estimate line by line and find out where your rates are wrong.
Mistake 4: losing track of revisions
Customers change drawings. If revision three was quoted and revision five is being fabricated, somebody has to notice. The quotation should carry the drawing number and revision, and a new revision should create a new version of the quotation rather than overwriting the old one — so you can show the customer exactly what changed and when.
Mistake 5: no feedback loop
An estimating system that never learns is just an expensive calculator. Once a job is complete, the actual material consumed, hours booked, rejection and job work charges should sit next to the estimate. Six months of that data will tell you more about your true costs than any consultant.
Doing this properly in practice
DigiLite builds quotations from layered costing with revision history, carries the drawing and specification through to the work order, and puts the actual cost back against the estimate when the job closes. See quotation and estimation, or the workflow for fabrication and structural businesses.
Bring one job you quoted recently and we will cost it in the system with you — book a walkthrough.