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 Consulting, 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
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Featured Guest
Name: Ted Mabley
Title: Director atUHY Consulting
About: Edward "Ted" Mabley has over 15 years of experience optimizing sales and business development operations, providing customer-specific solutions catering to a wide array of industries on a global scale. He works with OEMs, tier-one suppliers, and other manufacturing companies to create transparency in their cost process and develop vendor management programs to address relevant KPIs. His experience includes active cost management in accordance with enterprise product costing procedures, as well as developing strategic business roadmaps, product visions, and sales strategies.
Connect: LinkedIn
About Your Hosts
Jan Griffiths
Jan is the host and producer of the Auto Supply Chain Champions Podcast and The Automotive Leaders Podcast. A former automotive manufacturing and supply chain executive, Jan is recognized as a Champion for Culture Change in the automotive industry. She brings direct, grounded conversations to leaders navigating execution, disruption, and transformation across the global automotive ecosystem.
Tom Roberts (Co-host)
Tom is Co-host of the Auto Supply Chain Champions Podcast and Vice President of Strategic Industry Development at QAD. He works closely with automotive and industrial manufacturers to close the gap between insight and execution, helping leaders move from visibility to systems of action that drive real operational outcomes.
Mentioned in this Episode
Episode Highlights
[00:03:11] Twenty Years, More Complexity: Ted's survey of tier one suppliers and OEMs revisits a 2002 study and finds RFQs moving faster, growing more complex, and landing on fewer people with the skills to get them right.
[00:05:29] The Quote Is a Snapshot: A program quoted at 10% margin that launches at 5 or 6 shows how engineering changes and OEM productivity demands erode cost after the PO is issued.
[00:07:05] Cost Engineering Starts at the BOM: China speed means skilled cost engineers have to join while the bill of material and vehicle requirements are still being defined, not after.
[00:08:00] The Skills Gap Behind the Quote: Ted points to JCI's former cost engineering organization as a model for developing talent, a discipline that's largely been replaced by job postings for "four cost engineers."
[00:09:00] AI's Biggest Play Is the Data: With quote history scattered across SharePoint and laptops, the greatest opportunity for AI is reconciling the cost buckets OEMs scrutinize first.
[00:12:40] PPV Blocks Total Acquisition Cost: Jan argues that total acquisition cost won't drive decisions until purchasing teams stop being measured and bonused on purchase price variance.
[00:16:44] One Playbook per OEM: Every OEM has different DNA, and until the industry agrees on a common RFQ format, suppliers need a separate playbook for each customer.
[00:19:08] Start With One Workflow: Ted's recommended first move is redesigning a single high-volume RFQ or VAVE workflow end to end, then using it as a repeatable template.
Top Quotes
[00:07:29] Ted Mabley: "It needs to be a cost engineering team, not a cost analytics team. They need to be people-skilled who know what they're doing."
[00:12:00] Ted Mabley: "It has to be automation because there just aren't enough people in the system to be able to support it."
[00:19:41] Ted Mabley: "You've got to start somewhere. And you have to take a look at it from a holistic point, and you gotta be honest, right? What's working, what's not."
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