Case study: automating quotes, RAMS and job handovers
Fenwick Automation built the systems on this page. They draft quotes, chase them, pre-fill RAMS, write job handovers and build weekly reports. A person checks everything that goes to a client or touches safety.
The results so far: a first RAMS draft in a median of 10 minutes, against 22 hours by hand. 31 handover summaries written in four weeks. No quote chase written from scratch. And, by the Commercial Director's own estimate, a quote now takes about 10 minutes of his time instead of 45.
Below: what each system does, where the person sits, what went wrong, and what we changed.
- 10 minutes a first RAMS draft, against 22 hours by hand
- 45 to 10 minutes a quote, by the Commercial Director's own estimate
- 31 handover summaries written in four weeks
What was done by hand before?
Quotes were written from a template in a document tool. Each one needed a covering email. Chasing a quote meant someone remembering to do it.
Quotes were getting slower. From March to June 2026, the median time from a new deal to its quote going out was 30 to 49 hours, depending on the month. In July and early August it was about 110 hours.
RAMS were filled in by hand from a Google Doc template. Details already in the CRM were typed out again.
When a job was won, the handover to the operations team ran off a checklist. The weekly finance report was built by hand in Excel from the accounting figures.
"Quoting used to mean jumping between Word, Excel and PandaDoc, with several steps done by hand. A quote took me about 45 minutes. Now it's a few clicks in one place, and it takes about 10, including my check."
Commercial Director
What did we build?
Here are some of the systems we have running right now.
| System | What it does | Checks, drafts or assembles | What the person does |
|---|---|---|---|
| Quote document and covering email | Builds the quote document and drafts the email that goes with it. In use since 23 September 2026. | Drafts | The Commercial Director checks and sends both. |
| Quote chasing | Drafts a chase email each weekday morning and evening for quotes that are still out. | Drafts | Nothing goes out until the Commercial Director reads it and sends it. |
| Quote engagement | Reports which quotes have been opened, viewed and clicked. | Checks | The Commercial Director reads it. |
| Forms and documents | Fills the RAMS from the job record, every hour on weekdays, for jobs marked as needing one. | Drafts | The project management assistant writes the site-specific parts. The head of project management checks it. |
| Handover gate | Writes a handover summary onto each won job, once the client's terms are approved and payment is in. Runs every hour on weekdays. | Assembles | The operations team reads it. |
| Weekly figures | Pulls the week's figures from the CRM. | Assembles | The Commercial Director reviews them. |
| Weekly finance report | Builds the finance report beside the hand-built one. | Assembles | Compared line by line with the hand-built version. |
| Friday rules agenda | Lists the rules that need a decision at the weekly rules session. | Assembles | The Commercial Director and the person who checks quotes decide. |
The quoting systems are our Estimation route. Chasing and engagement are Pipeline automation. RAMS is Forms and documents. The handover gate is Automating CRM updating. Weekly figures and finance are Reporting.
What have we measured so far?
How we measured: timestamps from the CRM, Drive and email, checked against sent emails where we could. Change orders, requotes and test jobs are left out.
RAMS. Time from the RAMS task being set to a draft existing. By hand: a median of 22 hours, across 5 RAMS. By the system: a median of 10 minutes, across 7, and never more than 43 minutes. That is a first draft, not a finished RAMS. A person still writes the site-specific parts after that. One type of job was left out of the system on purpose when it was designed. Those RAMS are still done by hand.
By hand
22 hours
a median, across 5 RAMS
By the system
10 minutes
a median, across 7
Quotes. Before any quoting tools, the median time from new deal to quote sent was 48 hours. With the first estimating tools in use, it was 49 hours. No real change. The system that builds the quote document went in on 23 September. In its first three days the median was 23 hours. Deals not quoted yet aren't counted, so that figure looks better than it is. Three days proves nothing. We will re-run the count in late October and put the result here.
Once the system has drafted a quote, it goes out a median of 80 minutes later, after the Commercial Director has checked it. That is elapsed time, not working time. Some sat overnight.
Handovers. In its first four weeks live, the handover gate wrote a handover summary on 31 won jobs, not counting 3 test jobs.
Quote chasing. Nobody writes a chase from scratch any more. The system drafts every one.
Finance. The weekly finance report started a side-by-side run on 24 September 2026. The first line-by-line comparison is due on 29 September. We will add the result here.
Quote time for the person. The Commercial Director's own estimate: a quote used to take him about 45 minutes. It now takes about 10, including his check. That is his figure, not a timed one.
Which parts stay with a person?
Anything that goes to a client, and anything that touches safety.
Every quote, covering email and chase is read and sent by the Commercial Director. Nothing goes to a client on its own.
Every RAMS is finished by a person. The system fills in what is already known about the job. The project management assistant writes the site-specific parts, and the head of project management checks it. Risk assessment is a legal duty on every employer under regulation 3 of the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999. The duty sits with the employer, so a person signs every one off.
What went wrong, and what did we change?
-
Quote chasing broke first. It skipped its own rules. One contact got four emails in one morning. A quote a colleague had already sent was reported as unsent. The reason: colleagues sometimes send from the CRM, so those emails never reach the Commercial Director's inbox. Nobody had mentioned that at the start.
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Then the chase drafts piled up. On 7 September, 8 drafts were deleted unsent. On 10 September, none of the previous day's 20 morning drafts had been sent. A draft only saves time if someone has time to read it. That problem is still open.
-
Two live copies of the rules caused a failure. On 21 September every rule moved into one master folder. Now a Friday session decides any rule that needs changing.
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The first RAMS drafts had mistakes. The system overwrote its own "Site Dates:" label. The project management assistant found missing footers, a blank gap, the wrong site plan image, and one job that never got a RAMS at all. This is why a person finishes every RAMS.
-
The handover gate stopped working without telling anyone. Someone in operations typed a note into the summary field, and that blocked it. The head of project management spotted it on 7 September.
Some rules only came out once we were building:
- The spreadsheet that feeds the planning tool needs 21 specific columns.
- The operations lead's real rule: every item on a job's spec must be Yes or No. Never blank.
- Past problems were logged in a separate spreadsheet, not in the CRM.
What's still running?
Every system in the table above is running as of 25 September 2026. The weekly pipeline review is paused. It needs the Commercial Director's computer, which wasn't available.
Nobody has stopped checking. The Commercial Director still reads every email before it goes to a client. That is how we build them: the system drafts, a person signs it off.
Sources: figures from the business's own CRM, Drive and email records, pulled on 25 September 2026. Quote times are the Commercial Director's own estimate. The Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999, regulation 3.
Which document eats the most time?
10 minutes. You tell me the document that eats your evenings. You leave knowing whether it fits and roughly what it would cost.