Automotive RFQ Quoting: How Suppliers Protect Margin with Data and AI2 Min Read

Suppliers are under pressure to quote at China speed, and most can't stand behind the numbers they're sending. The average supplier now handles around 800 RFQs a year, up from 495 in 2002, with the same spreadsheets, email chains, and handful of veterans who know where the rates live. Speed is what everyone's demanding, and accuracy is where the margin's won or lost.

Jan and Tom Roberts welcome back Ted Mabley, Director at UHY, to discuss his new white paper, Closing the Cost Execution Gap. It builds on his earlier study with the Center for Automotive Research and comes out as OEMs, GM among them, press suppliers to show where every number comes from.

The gap shows up after the PO. A program quoted at a 10% margin launches at 5 or 6, as engineering changes and OEM productivity demands chip away at a quote that captured one engineering level at one moment. Sending the plant manager to sales to win the margin back won't work; the OEMs are too sophisticated for that.

Ted's fix starts upstream, with skilled cost engineers in the room as the bill of materials takes shape, and it runs through the data. Quote history sits in SharePoint, on laptops, and across ERP systems inherited through acquisitions, and connecting it is where he sees AI's biggest opportunity. Jan adds a pointed challenge: total acquisition cost won't drive decisions while purchasing teams are still bonused on PPV.

This conversation challenges supplier leaders to stop treating quoting as paperwork. Ted's first move is deliberately small: pick one high-volume RFQ or VAVE workflow and redesign it end-to-end. The suppliers who fix one workflow now will have a template for the rest, and a cost story they can defend when the OEM asks where the number came from.

Themes Discussed in This Episode

• Why speed without cost accuracy is a liability
• Embedding cost engineering upstream at the BOM
• Connecting fragmented quote, cost, and plant data
• Scaling the RFQ process with automation and AI
• Total landed cost vs piece price
• Why PPV block the total acquisition cost thinking
• OEM-specific playbooks and the case for a common RFQ format
• Starting with one high-volume RFQ or VAVE workflow

Listen to the full podcast episode on Auto Supply Chain Prophets.