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AI RFQ for Manufacturing: How I Stopped Losing Custom Steel Deals to Slow Replies

  • Writer: Atishay Jain
    Atishay Jain
  • May 19
  • 3 min read

ai rfq manufacturing



Why I Wrote This

In my first job selling custom steel parts, I lost a perfect-fit order to a competitor who answered the buyer’s RFQ eight hours faster than me. Eight hours. That sting pushed me to build Mavlon, an AI RFQ for manufacturing assistant that reads drawings, specs and past emails in seconds and tells you, “Yes, we can build this,” before lunch.

If you have ever juggled part numbers in one ERP, CAD files on a shared drive and “tribal knowledge” in Barry’s head, this story is for you. My goal is to show you, in plain English, how an AI RFQ workflow works, why it matters for custom steel shops, and the exact steps to get started today.



The Old Way: Manual RFQ Triage Eats Your Margin

  1. RFQ lands in the sales inbox with a multi-page PDF drawing and a “need‐by” date.

  2. Sales rep panics, shuffles the file to engineering, and waits.

  3. Engineer opens SolidWorks, checks material availability, flips through past jobs, and mails back questions.

  4. Twenty-four hours pass. The buyer follows up.

  5. You send a cautious quote then learn the job is already awarded to someone else.

Every extra touch burns minutes. Minutes become hours. Hours kill win rate.



The AI Way: Answer in Five Seconds

Mavlon’s AI RFQ for manufacturing agent is like giving every rep a seasoned sales engineer on demand:

  • Drop a drawing or dimension into chat.

  • The AI reads materials, tolerances, welding notes, and matches them to your real shop capabilities.

  • It replies with a confident Yes or No, plus links to the source lines in your own data for traceability.

Engineers stay focused on design work, not inbox firefighting. Sales sends a price the same hour the RFQ arrives. Users report up to a 30 percent boost in deal win rate and 60 percent fewer internal “Can we make this?” emails.



How “AI RFQ for Manufacturing” Works Under the Hood

  1. Data Ingestion - We connect to your ERP, email archives, CAD vault and shared drives.

  2. Vector Indexing - Specs, BOMs and tribal notes become searchable embeddings (fancy word for AI memory).

  3. Natural Language Chat - Reps ask, “Can we bend 6 mm 304 stainless to a 35 mm radius?” The AI answers with context.

  4. Continuous Learning - Every sent quote and drawing refines the model, so next week it is even sharper.

No rocket science for the user, just chat, copy, paste, done.



Five Everyday Wins You’ll Notice in Week One

Day

Pain Yesterday

Win with AI RFQ Today

1

Digging for part numbers

AI finds the right revision instantly

2

Waiting on welding engineer

AI flags weld spec fit or clash in seconds

3

New hire shadowing seniors

Rookie rep self-serves answers, ramps 50 percent faster

4

Quoting safe, high numbers

Confident feasibility lets you price competitively

5

Losing repeat jobs to faster shops

You reply first and set the price anchor



Is AI Expensive? Two Lost Jobs Pay for It

Custom steel margins are thin, so software must pay its way. Our math is simple: rescue just two $20 k jobs a year that you currently miss due to slow RFQ turnaround, and the subscription is covered. Everything after that is pure margin.



Getting Started in One Afternoon

  1. Pick one product line for example, laser-cut sheet parts.

  2. Upload the last year of drawings, quotes and emails.

  3. Invite one sales rep and one engineer to test.

  4. Fire a handful of live RFQs through chat.

  5. Measure reply time and win rate for a month.

Most shops see ROI before they finish the first coffee order.




Final Thoughts

I am not a polished copywriter just a steel-shop kid who hates losing jobs to slow answers. Building an AI RFQ for manufacturing changed my close rate, my stress level and my beer budget. If any of this sounds familiar, book a demo. Worst case, you spend ten minutes on a call and decide to stick with the old way. Best case, you reply to your next RFQ before your coffee cools and win back the margin you deserve.

Ready to see it live? Drop a spec, dimension or alloy into the Mavlon chat and get an answer in five seconds.



Thanks for giving me four minutes of your time. If you close even one extra deal because of what you read, this article did its job.


 
 
 

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