Technical Estimator & Sales Planning Specialist

About the Role

Winchester Interconnect is committed to inspiring innovative teams in a dynamic, inclusive environment that thrives on collaboration and continuous growth. The Technical Estimator & Sales Planning Specialist is a hybrid, high-impact role designed to act as the primary bridge between Sales, Supply Chain, and Plant Floor Operations. This role involves conducting accurate upfront engineering and cost estimations for New Product Introductions (NPI) and legacy re-orders, while actively owning the preproduction lifecycle. Responsibilities include strategic material planning, identifying and mitigating capacity bottlenecks, and driving proactive coordination with Supply Chain to lock in strategic vendor positioning before jobs are released to the floor. The goal is to ensure won contracts seamlessly transition into executable, high-margin manufacturing schedules.

Winchester Hermetics works with cutting-edge technology for high-cost-of-failure applications, supporting leading tech companies across various markets.

Responsibilities

• Upfront Costing & Technical Estimation
  • Analyze technical drawings, CAD files, blueprints, and RFQs to formulate comprehensive, highly accurate material, labor, and overhead structures.
  • Lead the NPI costing flow, collaborating with Manufacturing Engineering to map precise step-by-step routings.
  • Maintain data integrity for "Legacy Order" pricing architectures, running indexing reviews to offset fluctuations in raw materials, plating, or global logistics.
  • Construct and manage all quote entries within the ERP system to guarantee flawless financial traceability.
• Material Management & Pre-Job Planning
  • Own the "pre-build" phase: audit Bills of Materials (BOMs) instantly upon quote conversion to pinpoint long-lead items.
  • Coordinate the pre-production handoff, packaging clean "Job Release Packets" detailing explicit material requirements and technical definitions for operations.
  • Directly flag and track long-lead materials to trigger early-stage procurement cycles, ensuring raw inventory aligns with scheduled launch dates.
• Capacity Planning & Cross-Functional Alignment
  • Assess the forward-looking "on-deck" pipeline to provide visibility into upcoming floor demand, proactively protecting factory run times.
  • Identify and flag resource center constraints across key departments (e.g., CNC Machine Shop, Production/Assembly, Quality Control, and Shipping/Logistics) prior to job scheduling.
  • Translate complex estimating data and customer technical criteria into clear, action-oriented instructions for shop floor layout teams.
  • Conduct routine "Post-Mortem" reviews comparing estimated costs versus actual job costing variances to adjust engineering baselines.
• Strategic Supply Chain Synergy
  • Partner with corporate Procurement to source specialized subcontractor quotes, optimize multi-vendor relationships, and negotiate favorable project-specific pricing.
  • Assist supply chain teams in analyzing bulk commodity usage to lock in long-term raw material contracts or strategic vendor agreements for recurring projects.
  • Maintain exact historical logs of vendor quotes and sub-tier capabilities within the ERP to support corporate compliance and audit-readiness.
• Performance Metrics (KPIs)
  • Quote Turnaround & Precision: Consistently hitting internal timelines while maintaining minimal variance (<3%) between estimated cost and post-production actual cost.
  • Pre-Production Lead Time Reduction: Time elapsed from "Job Won" to "Materials Committed & Ordered" for operations handoff.
  • Resource Constraint Mitigation: Zero line-stoppages caused by un-flagged material shortages or unrecognized capacity constraints in QC/Machine Shop.
  • Supply Chain Integration Index: Percentage of high-value quotes backed by locked contracts or vetted multi-tiered vendor options.

Requirements

• Experience: 4+ years of cross-functional experience covering technical estimation, material planning, or sales-operations coordination within an industrial manufacturing setting.
• ERP/MRP Fluency: Deep hands-on experience navigating complex manufacturing architectures (e.g., Infor Visual, Epicor, SAP) with a focus on routings, BOMs, and inventory modules.
• Technical Blueprint Literacy: Advanced competency reading geometric dimensioning and tolerancing (GD&T), complex technical drawings, and CAD structures.
• Operational Insight: Solid fundamental understanding of machine shop, fabrication, assembly, and strict Quality Control processes.

Skills

• Accountability, Collaboration, and Empowerment (ACE) – core values driving success.
• Proactive problem-solving and cross-functional coordination.
• Strong analytical and technical skills for cost estimation and material planning.

Systems You’ll Use

• Google Enterprise
• Infor Visual
• ADP