By Andrew Parfitt, Technical Sales Manager

At Bauer, in addition to applying the process of Continuous Improvement in the engineering and manufacture of our products, we are also looking at opportunities to apply it in our Sales Department.

Over the past few years, we have been developing a large database of project information, which contains details of all aspects of the many projects undertaken since the implementation of the database. Each time we take on a new project, more up-to-date information on project costs, amount of time for engineering and manufacturing of the project, as well as other pertinent data is captured. All of this data can be quickly compiled and reviewed so that our sales team is able to establish more accurate estimates when quoting projects in a more timely fashion.

As we collect more feedback from the Engineering and Manufacturing departments, we are able to continually improve the quality of estimates so our customers can be assured that they are paying a fair price for the high quality product they are going to receive.

Another way we are making improvements is in our technical proposals. Technical Proposals are Bauer's way of capturing customer requirements and explaining our proposed solution. By standardizing the descriptions of the Design Elements used by our Engineering department, we aim to improve our communication between our customers and our staff, and reduce our response time to a customer Request for Proposal/Request for Quote (RFP/RFQ).

We at Bauer also take pride in our willingness to work with our customers to provide them with test equipment that meets their specific needs. We do not want the customer to have to settle for a generic product that may do the job, but does not necessarily meet all of their requirements or needs. With this new database system, as we gather more information from the different customer options and requirements, this data can be used to provide quotes that accurately capture the requirements that will satisfy the needs our our customers. This creates win-win situations for both Bauer and our customers.