For Independent CNC, weld, sheet metal, and make-to-order job shops
Know which RFQs are sitting unquoted before the customer goes elsewhere
RFQs land in an inbox, a customer portal, and someone's phone. The estimator is busy, so the hard ones wait. A week later the buyer has already awarded the job to the shop that answered first.
What it can cost you
Example: 4 RFQs a month that age out unquoted, at a $12,000 average order and a 30% win rate = $14,400 a month in work never competed for.An illustration, not a promise. Your Opportunity Scan puts a real number on it.
What the system checks overnight
- Logs every RFQ from email and customer portals with its due date.
- Tracks age of each RFQ until a quote goes out, by estimator.
- Flags RFQs close to the customer's due date with no quote started.
- Puts RFQs from your top customers ahead in the list.
- Tracks how quote turnaround time relates to win rate in your own history.
Where it reads from
- Outlook (RFQ emails)
- JobBOSS², ProShop ERP, Global Shop Solutions, ECI M1, or Epicor (quotes)
- Google Sheets (RFQ log)
What happens when it fires
The estimator works the list in order. The system drafts a quick acknowledgment to the buyer with an expected quote date, and pre-fills a quote from similar past parts.
Autonomy level: Draft for approval. The system prepares the message or task, and you approve it before anything goes out.
What we guarantee
Every RFQ that reaches the shop inbox logged within a day, with its age and due date in every morning brief. We agree on the metric before the Sprint starts and measure it over the first 20 business days after go-live. If we miss it, you get half your Sprint fee back. Dollar savings are tracked in your monthly saves log, reported rather than promised.
Questions
Can it read drawings and quote the part?
No. Estimating stays with your people. It can pull up similar past parts and their actual costs so the estimator starts from real numbers.
We get RFQs through supplier portals. Can it see those?
If the portal sends email notices, it reads those. Some shops forward portal RFQs to one inbox so nothing is missed.
Do I need new software for this?
No. The system reads from the tools you already use, with read-only access by default. A guardrail layer controls exactly which data the AI can see.
What does it cost?
A 3-week Sprint is $6,000 fixed and includes the morning brief plus one automation tied to an agreed metric. Ongoing support is $1,500 a month, or $500 a month to keep it running without new automations. If the agreed metric is missed over the first 20 business days after go-live, half the Sprint fee is refunded.
How is this different from a dashboard app or a free AI kit?
A dashboard app shows numbers when you go look. A free AI kit gives you the parts, and you do the setup, the upkeep, and the checking. Here the alarms are built for your kind of business, they watch outside data like market rates and rule changes alongside yours, and on Run or Keep-Running, the person who built them keeps them working and logs what they caught.
More alarms for machine and fabrication job shops
Seven more things worth watching.
- Jobs running over estimated hoursCompare hours clocked to estimated hours on every open job, operation by operation, so you can step in before the whole job's margin is gone.
- Repeat orders at a losing priceWhen a repeat PO comes in, compare its price to what that part really cost on past runs, so you requote losing parts instead of repeating them.
- Orders about to ship lateCompare remaining routing hours, work center load, material, and outside processing to each promise date, so late orders are caught early.
- Material and outside process cost creepCompare vendor invoices for metal, plating, heat treat, and coating to PO prices and quoted costs, so supplier increases get caught early.
- Machines idle or stuck in long setupsCompare run hours to available hours per machine and track setup time per job, so your most expensive machines spend more time making parts.
- Paid hours not landing on jobsCompare paid hours to hours clocked on work orders by employee and shift, so indirect time and clocking gaps stop hiding in your shop rate.
- Shipped but not invoicedMatch every packing slip to an invoice and every invoice to its PO price, so shipped work does not sit unbilled or go out at the wrong amount.
See all machine and fabrication job shops alarms · Browse every industry