CLIENT STORY — ERGOFORM
€5,000 → €500
per month in calculation costs
Hours
quotes in hours instead of days
95 / 5
system calculates, human decides
Captured
knowledge in the system, not in one head
The real system in use at Ergoform — step 1 of 4: reading the drawing.
01
How it used to go
Ergoform designs and makes bespoke kitchens, interiors and worktops. Every request started with a drawing from the architect.
First work out how the design fits together: which parts are in it, what sizes they are, which material is needed where. Then determine the quantities. Then look up the supplier's price for every line. And once that added up, the writing began: laying out the quote line by line, checking it, sending it.
That cost money in three ways. The hours themselves. The customer who meanwhile already had a price from somewhere else. And the requests nobody ever got round to.
02
What we built
Now the drawing goes in and the quote comes out.
The system reads the drawing, recognises the parts and their dimensions, works out how much material is needed, looks up the current supplier price and turns all of that into a complete quote. Worked out down to the last line.
And it never guesses. What it cannot know, it sets aside as an open item: a loose piece of furniture that has to be quoted along with the rest, a price that has to be requested first. One look over it, fill in the open items, send.
“A drawing could sit on the pile for days before anyone got to it. Now the customer often has a price the same day. That isn’t an efficiency gain, that’s extra capacity.”
Joep van Erven — director, Ergoform Interiors B.V.
03
What it does now
A quote is ready within a few hours instead of after weeks. The customer has a price the same day, often before the competitor has started calculating. And the first serious price often wins the job.
Work is coming in now that was turned down last year. Not because there are more people, but because the calculating is no longer the brake.
The system gets sharper with every quote that passes through it. The knowledge that used to sit in one head is now written down.
Ergoform is one example. The question is whether it fits you too.