RFQ and Machine Shops

Request for Quote (RFQ)  

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the RFQ process in machining, this is something you will need to be familiar with before posting jobs for bid on Contract Auction.  Most machine shops only acquire new work by bidding new RFQ’s.  This is the industry standard for pricing out contract work. In the past, it has been difficult for both the purchaser and the machine shops to acquire new work, due to the laborious process of finding companies, and putting together a competitive bid while maintaining a profitable business.  Contract Auction has simplified the process by bringing all the machine shops here to one place for the purchaser to submit the RFQ one time, and allow all interested to submit their bids.  This process also benefits the bidder, allowing them to have a robust knowledge of competitor pricing and industry standards, as well as having the opportunity to “sell” themselves in the comment sections.

Submitting an RFQ to Hundreds of Companies

Machine Shops are more apt to bid on an RFQ if they can tell that the purchaser is a serious buyer, who knows exactly what they would like machined, what quantities, and future order quantities are needed.  If you are vague in your description, then you must expect less machine shops to bid the work.  There is a great deal of work required on the bidder side to bid most projects, therefore machine shops will try to weed out those who are not serious.  Also, as a purchaser you only need to submit your RFQ once, so be  sure it is submitted correctly in order for the machine shops to give an accurate bid.

Evaluating Multiple bids On Your RFQ

When evaluating the machine shops’ bids on your RFQ, there are many other things to take into consideration than just the price.  Did the bidder seem easy to deal with during the process?  This can be indicative of how the rest of the project may go.  If the bidder has multiple feedbacks what are the ratings?  Is there one bidder that is grossly lower than all the other bids?  If so this could be a bad sign that they are not doing something all the other bidders found necessary.   For more advice on evaluating machine shops, see the article titled “Small Machine Shops – 4 Things to Look For”.

Moving Forward After Accepting an RFQ

Once you have accepted a bid and the bidder has accepted the reward, keep in mind that from this point forward you are evaluating the quality of the machine shop and the machine shop is evaluating your quality as a purchaser.  This will help ensure that everyone can make an informed decision on their future listings and bidding.