Configurator statistics are often marketing air. So this page follows two rules. Every range on the site also appears here with its source, and wherever the source is sharper than our claim, we say so. Spot a number without a source? Email us and we will add the source or remove the number.
2 to 6 weeks between enquiry and quote
Documented case study at an engineer-to-order machine builder (cement plants). The lead time for budget quotations dropped from 2 to 5 weeks to 1 to 3 days through product configuration. The source is Hvam, Improving the quotation process with product configuration (Computers in Industry).
10 to 25% of manual quotes contain an error
No single public study measures error rates in manual quoting. Vendors and industry publications report rates of 10 to 25% in spreadsheet-driven processes (see for example Tacton on quoting errors). That is why we quote a range rather than a false-precision figure.
30 to 80% shorter quote lead time
Academic research on configurators in engineering-oriented companies measures an average quotation lead-time reduction of 85.5%. Our range is deliberately conservative. The source is The impact of product configurators on lead times in engineering-oriented companies (AI EDAM, Cambridge).
20 to 30% fewer engineering hours
McKinsey documents, among other modularisation results, 30% fewer engineering hours in product development (aerospace) and 50% savings on drawing work through standardised drawings. The source is Platforming and modularity (McKinsey Operations).
50 to 90% fewer errors reaching the shop floor
Rule-based configuration makes invalid combinations unselectable. Vendor studies report reductions from 30 to 40% down to near zero, depending on how much of the process runs through the configurator. Here too, a deliberate range rather than a promise of zero.
What does CPQ deliver structurally?
The most-cited independent research (Nucleus Research) measures an average 121% ROI across CPQ deployments and $6.22 returned per dollar invested over three years, with an average payback of around sixteen months. The source is CPQ returns $6.22 per dollar spent (Nucleus Research). With our pilot you will know for your own product within two weeks. That is not research, that is an offer.
"18 to 24 months for the textbook route" and "60 to 80% of every order is identical" are field experience from modularisation programmes, not research results. We present them as rules of thumb, and this page keeps us honest about that.