Case Study: How Signum Saved Up to 30 Hours per Quote with Breadboard

About the Client

Signum is an ISO 9001 and ISO 13485 certified provider of Internet of Things (IoT) solutions, engineering services, and electronics manufacturing. The company delivers fully integrated embedded systems, spanning device-level electronics through cloud connectivity.

Signum’s multi-discipline engineering expertise includes electronics design, device firmware, cellular connectivity, data delivery, cloud services, databases, and web and mobile software development. Supported by an ISO-certified manufacturing quality management system, Signum serves customers that require high reliability, traceability, and fast execution across the full product lifecycle.

Team Using Breadboard

2 people across supply chain and quoting

The Challenge

Operating in a build-to-print environment with short turnaround timelines, the team at Signum needed to move quickly without sacrificing accuracy. Before Breadboard, quoting was constrained by the time required to manually gather and validate pricing data across multiple approved suppliers.

Key challenges included:

Fragmented pricing data — Gathering current price points across multiple vendors required extensive manual research for every quote.

Time-intensive verification — Pricing, availability, and lead time data had to be cross-checked repeatedly to ensure accuracy.

Delayed quote refreshes — Quotes often sat for weeks or months before converting to purchase orders, requiring pricing to be revalidated from scratch.

Limited efficiency for newer team members — Without centralized supplier data, ramping up and maintaining efficiency was difficult.

Depending on BOM size, completing a single quote could take anywhere from 1 to 5 days, consuming valuable engineering and supply chain time.

The Solution: Breadboard’s Automated Supply Chain Platform

To reduce manual effort and improve data reliability, Signum implemented Breadboard as a centralized platform for supplier pricing, availability, and lead time visibility.

Key capabilities deployed:

Direct supplier API integrations — Breadboard connects directly to Signum’s top suppliers, pulling customer-specific pricing and honoring special pricing categories automatically.

Rapid pricing refresh — Once a BOM is locked, pricing can be refreshed instantly to reflect current market conditions, even months after the original quote.

Centralized BOM visibility — Pricing, availability, and lead time data are consolidated in a single system, eliminating manual cross-referencing.

Faster, more confident quoting — Accurate, up-to-date data enables reliable cost estimates and clearer customer communication around lead times.

Results

Since adopting Breadboard, Signum has significantly improved quoting efficiency and reliability:

6–30 hours saved per quote — Larger BOMs eliminate up to 25+ hours of manual pricing, availability, and lead time research.

Faster quote turnaround — Quotes that previously took up to 5 days can now be completed much more efficiently.

Improved data accuracy — Locked BOMs with refreshable pricing reduce errors and customer complaints.

Stronger build-to-print confidence — Faster turnaround and reliable data have improved confidence in competitive bids, contributing to a stronger perceived win rate.

Meaningful labor cost savings — For lengthy BOMs, time savings alone can represent $500 or more in avoided research effort per quote.

While total quote volume remains steady at approximately one quote per week, Breadboard delivers value through efficiency, accuracy, and confidence rather than increased throughput.

Customer Perspective

“If I had to summarize the value of Breadboard in one sentence, it would be time savings and accurate cost estimates across multiple suppliers!”

— Supply Chain & Quoting Team Member, Signum

Looking Ahead

With Breadboard embedded in their quoting workflow, Signum is positioned to:

• Respond faster to time-sensitive build-to-print opportunities
• Maintain pricing accuracy as quotes convert to purchase orders over longer cycles
• Scale efficiency as BOM complexity and customer demands increase

Why It Matters

This case highlights an important reality for embedded systems and IoT manufacturers: success isn’t always about producing more quotes. It’s about producing better quotes, faster, with confidence.

By eliminating hours of manual supplier research and enabling rapid pricing updates, Breadboard helps teams deliver faster, more reliable quotes without compromising the precision required in regulated, quality-driven environments.

See Breadboard in Action

Want to see how much time your team could save on quoting? Book a free demo with our team and explore how automated pricing, availability, and lead time data can simplify your BOM workflows. Not ready for a demo yet? Give us a try with our 30-day free trial.

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