Manufacturing / RFQ and quote automation
RFQ automation, from request to quote
RFQ automation software for manufacturers who quote from drawings. Send us one real request for quote with its drawings and specification, and within a week you get the quantities taken off and a bill of materials ready to price, every line traced to the drawing it came from.
Drawing takeoff and bills of materials in production at John Cockerill.
The reality
A request for quote arrives with a stack of drawings, a specification and a deadline. Before anyone can price it, someone has to read every drawing, count, measure and build the bill of materials by hand. At John Cockerill that step took 3 to 4 days per project, and up to 15 once suppliers were brought into the final costing.
What Mirage does
Automated quoting software, fed by your drawings
The slow part of a quote is not the price, it is everything before it. Mirage does that part and leaves the price to your estimator.
Reads the whole RFQ package
The request, the drawings, the specification and the customer's terms: quantities, materials, tolerances, the delivery lead time asked for, and the conditions that would stop you bidding.
Takes off quantities and builds the BOM
Piping, boilermaking and structural steel drawings are measured and turned into separate material take-off and bill of materials outputs, with no 3D model to rebuild first.
Gives the estimator a starting point
Each BOM line is matched to the cost sheets, supplier prices and past quotes you provide, so the estimator reviews and adjusts instead of starting from a blank spreadsheet.
RFQ response time and quote turnaround in manufacturing
Quote turnaround is set by the longest step, and in build-to-print work that step is reading the drawings.
Where the days go
Reading drawings and building the bill of materials is the part of the quote cycle that grows with the size of the package, and the part that runs on your most experienced people.
What changes when takeoff is automated
At John Cockerill, time spent on piping takeoff fell by 80 to 90%, and the fabrication bill of materials comes ten times faster. The estimator's time moves to pricing and risk.
Answering the requests you used to decline
When takeoff no longer takes days, the go or no-go decision is made on the whole package rather than a quick look at it, and requests turned down for lack of time can be answered.
The output
RFQ processing, line by line
| Drawing item | Read from the drawing | Bill of materials line | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| ISO-104, spool 3 | Pipe DN100 SCH40, 6.2 m | Pipe DN100 SCH40 A106 B, 6.2 m | Taken off |
| ISO-104, spool 3 | Elbow 90° LR DN100, 4 | Elbow 90° LR DN100, 4 pcs | Taken off |
| ISO-104, title block↳ The title block lists 2 flanges; the drawing itself shows 3. Title block omissions were a known problem at John Cockerill, so the count from the drawing is proposed and the difference flagged. | Flange DN100 PN16, 2 | Drawing shows 3 flanges | Mismatch |
| GA-02, note 7↳ The note points to a section the customer did not send. The line is held and the missing document listed for your clarification request. | Coating to specification section 9 | Section 9 not in the package | Sent to a person |
Proof
Faster quote turnaround in manufacturing, in production
John Cockerill runs Mirage on its piping drawings in Morocco, with boilermaking and structural steel modules on the same platform, in operations where nothing gets quoted until the drawings have been measured.
John Cockerill
80 to 90% less time spent on piping takeoff
A fabrication bill of materials ten times faster
No 3D model to rebuild before the first bill of materials exists
RFQ automation, tested on one of your requests
Send us one real RFQ package, drawings included. Within a week you get the takeoff and the bill of materials back, with what the package does not say flagged.
How a deployment runs: Observe, Map, Build, Run, Expand. See the method
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