What You Need for a 3D Quoting Tool: What a Manufacturer Should Have

In short: To order a 3D quoting tool, a manufacturer needs its catalog with sizes and options, the rules for what can be combined, the way it calculates prices today, examples of real quotes, and one person who can sign off on technical and commercial decisions.

To order a 3D quoting tool, you don't need anything digitized or organized like a manual. You need to be clear on what you sell, in what sizes and with what options, which combinations can't be built, and how you calculate prices today, even if it's in a spreadsheet or in the owner's head. And you need one person who can say "yes, that's how it's built" when a question comes up.

What you don't need

It's worth clearing this up first, because many manufacturers put the project off thinking they have to "get organized" beforehand.

You don't need CAD drawings of every variant. You don't need 3D models. You don't need a management system or a designed catalog. You don't need your website done.

The usual starting point at a small or mid-sized company in this industry is a mix of a PDF catalog, photos of finished projects, an Excel spreadsheet the owner put together years ago, and old quotes sent over WhatsApp. That's enough to get started. Part of the work of building the quoting tool is precisely organizing that material.

1. The catalog, even if it's informal

The first step is knowing which products go into the quoting tool. For each one:

• Which dimensions are chosen and within what range. For a metal building: span from 6 to 40 m (about 20 to 131 ft), length, eave height, roof pitch. For horse stalls: number of stalls and the size of each (3 × 3, 3.5 × 3.5 or 4 × 4 m, roughly 10 × 10 to 13 × 13 ft).
• In what increments they change. Does length go meter by meter, or in bays between frames? Is the house built room by room or from fixed models?
• What options there are. Wall types, openings, colors, finishes, accessories.

If none of it is written down anywhere, that's fine. A one-hour conversation with whoever quotes today is usually enough for a first version of this list.

2. The rules: what can and can't be done

This is the most valuable part and the least documented. It's the stuff the owner knows and a new sales rep doesn't. For example, statements like these:

• "A 6-meter sliding door doesn't fit with frames every 5."
• "More than 12 stalls in a row needs another beam."
• "The second floor only goes on certain modules."
• "Below a 10 % pitch, we don't recommend that sheeting."

It helps to jot them down as they come up during the week. Every time someone at the factory says "that can't be done" or "that needs something else," there's a rule. If you want to go deeper, in turning the owner's know-how into rules I explain how they become software without losing the made-to-order flexibility.

3. How the price is calculated today

It doesn't matter whether the calculation is tidy or somewhat improvised; what matters is knowing it exactly as it is. What helps:

• The spreadsheet in use, even if it's full of odd formulas.
• Three to five real quotes, with the configuration and the final price. They're used to check that the quoting tool gives the same result the owner would.
• What's charged separately: freight, installation, concrete slab, engineering.
• What changes often: steel, sheeting, wood, labor. Those values will live in a table the manufacturer manages.
• How discounts and financing are handled.

A practical note: if two people quote today and don't arrive at the same number for the same building, that's going to come to light. It's good that it does. The quoting tool forces you to settle on one approach, and that alone fixes a lot of costly quoting mistakes.

4. Photos, colors and materials

For the 3D to look like what you build, it helps to have photos of finished projects, the sheeting color chart you offer, and samples or photos of the woods, finishes and accessories. If you have photos of individual accessories —waterers, feeders, hardware— those too: at EQUIBOX, for example, photos of the chosen accessories go into the PDF quote alongside the render views.

5. What you want to happen after the configuration

This question defines the scope more than any other. Once the customer has finished building their product, what should happen?

• Do they request a quote over WhatsApp with the configuration attached?
• Do they see a reference price on the website?
• Does a sales rep get an email alert and log it in a CRM?
• Is a PDF generated with the render, the floor plan and the itemized detail?
• Does shipping need to be calculated based on location?

You don't need to solve all of it up front, but you do need to know where you're headed. Each of those items is a cost factor; they're broken down in how much a 3D quoting tool costs.

6. Where and how it will be used

A quoting tool used from the office with a good connection is not the same as one that will run on an iPad at a booth at an agricultural show, in the sun, with no signal. Tell your developer where your team sells: at the factory, on site, at trade fairs, over WhatsApp late at night. Decisions like offline mode or a display mode that's readable in full sunlight depend on that.

7. One person who decides

The last requirement is human. You need someone —the owner, the sales manager or the production manager— who has time to review progress and the authority to say "this rule stays like this." Without that person, the project drags on waiting for answers. With them, each stage moves quickly. In how a 3D quoting tool is built I explain what's asked of the manufacturer at each stage.

A good exercise before the first conversation

Open the metal building and shed configurator, the prefab home one or the horse stall one, whichever is closest to what you make, and write down what's missing for it to be your product. That list of differences is, practically speaking, the project brief.

I'm Facundo Campo, and in my first conversation with a manufacturer that's exactly what I do: look at what they already have and see what's needed and what isn't. If you'd like me to review your material, send it over on WhatsApp at +54 9 11 6193-3176 or to facundocampo100@gmail.com, or read more about custom 3D quoting software development.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need drawings or 3D models of my products?

No. The engine generates the 3D from building rules, not from drawn models. Dimensions, options and reference photos are enough; drawings help if they exist, but they're not a requirement.

What if my prices only exist in the owner's head?

That's the most common case. The logic is rebuilt from real quotes and a conversation with whoever does the quoting, and the quoting tool is checked to give the same numbers before it goes live.

How much of the manufacturer's time does the project take?

At the start, a few hours to go over products, rules and prices. After that, occasional reviews of each milestone. What slows a project down most isn't the number of hours, it's waiting for answers.

Can I start with just one product?

Yes, and it's often the best approach: start with the product that generates the most inquiries. The others are added on the same engine.