Overview The Business Development Manager is responsible for leading Universal Fabricating’s sales and estimating functions while ensuring that every meaningful opportunity entering the business is converted into complete, accurate and actionable information.

This role extends well beyond traditional estimating. The Business Development Manager owns the quality of commercial data entering Universal’s ERP system and is accountable for creating the foundation upon which Procurement, Engineering, Operations, Scheduling and Finance execute.

The Business Development Manager is accountable for ensuring that every quotation establishes a strong operational foundation for the organization. The quality of information produced by this department directly impacts material planning, engineering throughput, operational efficiency, financial performance and ultimately the customer experience.

The successful candidate will lead the evaluation and implementation of estimating technologies, ERP enhancements and Industry 4.0 initiatives while ensuring the estimating team consistently produces accurate labour standards, complete itemized Bills of Material where practical, routing information and customer documentation.

This position is equally responsible for developing people, improving the customer experience and building a disciplined sales organization capable of supporting Universal’s aggressive growth.

Duties

- Lead, mentor and develop the Inside Sales, Estimating and Outside Sales teams.
- Lead departmental performance by setting transparent expectations, establishing measurable KPIs, and providing ongoing coaching and performance feedback to achieve operational objectives and foster continuous improvement.
- Ensure departmental priorities and initiatives are aligned with Universal's operational capabilities, strategic goals, and customer commitments while optimizing resources and performance outcomes.
- Improve consistency across estimating, customer communication and opportunity management.
- Drive estimating excellence through regular quote reviews, coaching, and performance monitoring, establishing accountability for data quality, customer follow-up, estimating accuracy, commercial judgement, and successful project execution
- Develop and implement standardized estimating procedures, work instructions, and best practices to improve consistency across estimating, customer communication, opportunity management, and project handoffs.
- Build a high-performance culture based on professionalism, ownership, collaboration and continuous improvement.
- Own the accuracy, completeness, and consistency of commercial and estimating data within Genius ERP, ensuring the system serves as Universal's single source of truth from quotation through shipment.
- Establish and maintain ERP standards for machine and labour data, Bills of Material, routings, outside processing requirements, purchasing requirements, customer specifications, assumptions, exclusions, and special requirements.
- Ensure quotations and estimates provide Engineering, Procurement, and Operations with sufficient detail to begin work immediately upon order award, improving first-pass accuracy and minimizing downstream clarification, rework, and order-release corrections.
- Continuously audit estimate quality, ERP data integrity, and process effectiveness, identifying recurring errors, omissions, and process gaps and implementing corrective actions to prevent issues from being passed downstream.
- Define accountability for ERP data entry, quotation approval, and order-release readiness while eliminating reliance on uncontrolled spreadsheets and disconnected sources of commercial information.
- Lead the evaluation, selection, and implementation of ERP enhancements and complementary technologies that support estimating, opportunity management, order processing, automation, and customer engagement.
- Develop business cases, implementation plans, success criteria, pilot programs, and deployment milestones for new technologies, including solutions such as CAD-to-BOM automation, AI-assisted estimating, quote automation, CRM integration, customer portals, and Paperless Parts.
- Partner with IT, Engineering, Finance, and executive leadership to ensure all systems integrate effectively with Genius ERP,



maintaining a single source of truth and eliminating duplicate databases, disconnected information, and competing processes.
- Champion Industry 4.0 and continuous improvement initiatives that reduce manual data entry, improve information flow, increase operational efficiency, and ensure employees are properly trained and new systems are fully adopted.
- Own estimating and costing standards across the organization.
- Ensure estimates accurately reflect Universal’s manufacturing capabilities, operating costs, equipment utilization and current market conditions.
- Identify recurring variances and determine whether they are caused by estimating assumptions, operational performance, routing design, scope changes or data-quality issues.
- Implement corrective actions to continuously improve estimating accuracy and margin reliability.
- Create visibility into which products, customers and opportunities consistently perform above or below estimated margin expectations.
- Establish and maintain a formal process for reviewing labour standards, labour sell rates, machine rates, and estimating assumptions to ensure accuracy, consistency, and competitiveness.
- Collaborate with Finance and Operations to maintain costing models, burden allocations, material costs, outside-processing costs, and margin expectations, ensuring ERP data is current and accurate.
- Partner with Finance and Operations to review estimate-to-actual performance, validate costing assumptions, and identify opportunities to improve estimating accuracy and profitability.
- Create a formal project kickoff package that clearly communicates: complete customer documentation with clear scope as defined in the RFQ and final quotation, assumptions made during estimating, exclusions and commercial qualifications, routing requirements for the shop floor, material and outside-processing requirements, known risks, long-lead items and unresolved questions.
- Collaborate closely with the Engineering Manager to define clear responsibilities between Sales, Estimating, Engineering, Programming, Procurement and Operations.
- Ensure customer commitments made during the sales process are clearly documented and understood internally.
- Ensure complete and accurate project handoffs by addressing information gaps, documenting assumptions, resolving scope issues, and maintaining the standard that no avoidable surprises occur after award.
- Own pipeline discipline across the sales organization.
- Ensure all significant opportunities are accurately maintained within the approved CRM and ERP systems, including ownership, customer information, opportunity status, probability, quotations, expected award dates, revenue timing, and appropriate business classifications.
- Drive disciplined opportunity management by requiring all meaningful opportunities to follow a consistent sales process, with defined next actions, regular customer follow-up, documented feedback, and ongoing pipeline reviews to support forecasting accuracy and business growth.
- Maintain a clear understanding of competitor activity, market positioning and reasons opportunities are won or lost.
- Analyze pipeline trends to identify: emerging markets, customer buying patterns, competitive threats, capacity requirements, strategic opportunities, areas of declining activity.
- Provide timely executive reporting on pipeline health, major opportunities, forecast risks and customer trends.
- Ensure the pipeline reflects reality rather than optimism.
- Improve visibility into what is likely to convert over the next three, six and twelve months.
- Develop, implement, and continuously refine a probability-scoring methodology to improve sales forecast accuracy, reliability, and confidence in business planning and decision-making.
- Develop and enforce superior communication standards across the sales and estimating teams.




- Coach and develop employees to become trusted advisors rather than transactional quote providers by strengthening listening skills, strategic questioning, customer engagement, professional communication, and the ability to clearly explain assumptions, risks, and recommendations while building customer confidence and credibility.
- Develop presentation standards that communicate value, risk and opportunity rather than simply providing pricing or technical information.
- Ensure difficult messages, commercial concerns and scope limitations are communicated clearly without damaging the customer relationship.
- Use customer feedback to improve quoting processes, communication practices and service levels.
- Ensure all written and verbal customer communications reflect Universal’s professionalism, responsiveness, and commitment to long-term relationships, enhancing the company’s reputation through consistent, thoughtful, and high-quality interactions.
- Develop dashboards and presentations that meet the requirements outlined by the President and COO, including but not limited to: market trends and competitor activity, quoting activity and full CRM reporting, customer trends and feedback, estimating accuracy / margin analyses, quarterly pipeline forecasts, major opportunities and risks, customer concentration, and sales activity by market and business segment.
- Develop executive-level presentations and reporting that clearly communicate business performance, emerging trends, risks, and opportunities, enabling leadership to anticipate the next 3 to 6 months and take proactive action where intervention is required.
- Transform raw data and historical trends into actionable insights and recommendations, enabling informed decision-making and proactive business planning.
- Develop strong working relationships with Engineering, Procurement, Operations, Finance, Scheduling and IT.
- Lead cross-functional process-improvement initiatives that eliminate waste, improve data quality and reduce order-to-production lead times.
- Act as the voice of the customer internally while balancing operational efficiency, profitability and long-term strategic objectives.
- Ensure commercial decisions properly consider manufacturing capability, capacity, material availability and operational risk.
- Collaborate with the Engineering Manager to create a seamless flow of information from estimating through engineering and manufacturing release.
- Work with Procurement to ensure long-lead and non-standard material requirements are identified as early as possible.
- Work with Operations and Scheduling to ensure estimating routings and labour assumptions support realistic capacity and production planning.
- Work with Finance to ensure pricing and margin reporting are based on reliable and current cost information.
- Promote collaboration across departments and actively eliminate functional silos through communication, accountability and shared objectives.
- Resolve cross-functional issues at their source rather than allowing problems to be passed downstream.

Experience

- Proven leadership experience managing sales, estimating, or business development teams.
- Strong knowledge of manufacturing operations, costing, estimating, and customer relationship management.
- Experience with ERP and CRM systems, data analysis, and business reporting tools.
- Ability to lead process improvements, technology implementations, and organizational change initiatives.
- Several years of progressive experience in manufacturing, sales, business development, estimating, or operations leadership roles.
- Post-secondary education in Business Administration, Engineering, Operations Management, Manufacturing, Supply Chain Management, or a related field.

Join us as a Business Development Manager to ignite growth, forge impactful partnerships, and contribute to our ongoing success story. Your energy, expertise, and strategic vision will be vital in shaping our future! Universal Fabricating is an equal opportunity employer. Please contact Human Resources if you require accommodation.

Pay: $120,000.00-$150,000.00 per year

Benefits

- Casual dress
- Company events
- Dental care
- Extended health care
- Life insurance
- Mileage reimbursement
- On-site parking
- Profit sharing
- RRSP match
- Vision care

Experience:
- estimating or sales: 1 year (preferred)
- manufacturing: 1 year (preferred)

Work Location: In person

📌 Business Development Manager (Kingsville)
🏢 Universal Fabricating
📍 Kingsville