AI quoting for electrical equipment manufacturers

Win the electrical equipment jobs your competitors are too slow to price.

Most electrical equipment is quoted from the buyer's own documents: a specification, a one-line diagram, which is the drawing of how power flows through the system, and the rest of the bid package. Mavlon's AI Quoting Engine reads all of it and returns a priced draft quote in your own pricing within minutes, so your team answers first, bids on more jobs and stops losing work to slow quotes. Your estimator checks it and sets the final number.

Book a Demo How we test it →

One open question from each of four public packages

p.9Switchgear: page 9 asks for a 135 kA momentary rating, and the breaker table on page 10 fits a 25 kA lineup.
E50Generator set: the main electrical drawing shows 300 kW, and the bid advertisement names a 350 ekW unit.
p.B3E-house: the main text has the builder install and test the fire alarm, and Appendix B gives that work to the buyer.
p.7Battery storage: the RFP asks for 4 kWh per kW and never says whether that is counted at the battery or at the meter.

Each one changes the price. In our sample quotes, the two readings of the generator, e-house and battery questions are $27,800, $36,800 and $70,400 apart. The draft prices both readings and writes the question for the buyer, so your quote can go out first without a guess hidden inside it.

Why speed decides who wins

When power equipment is scarce, buyers start with the supplier who prices the job first.

Electrical equipment manufacturers in the USA make up a large industry. The Bureau of Economic Analysis puts the value added by US makers of electrical equipment, appliances and components at about $51 billion in 2023, measured in 2017 dollars. On the power side of that industry, buyers now wait a long time for equipment. Reuters reported in July 2026 that lead times for generator step-up transformers, the large transformers that connect a power plant to the grid, passed 160 weeks in early 2026, and that data center construction is driving demand for circuit breakers and switchgear. In the same report, Ben Boucher of Wood Mackenzie said, “Equipment availability is becoming the biggest concern for developers as they value time to market so highly.” A buyer who thinks that way starts with the supplier who sends a price it can trust.

$51B

Value added by US makers of electrical equipment, appliances and components in 2023, in 2017 dollars, per the BEA

160+ wks

Lead time for generator step-up transformers, Q1 2026, per Reuters

$65B

US data center electrical equipment market by 2030, up from about $20B in 2026, per Wood Mackenzie

Minutes

From an electrical equipment bid package to a priced draft quote

Most of this equipment is quoted from someone else's documents, and they are long. The public packages in our guides run from a 35-page switchgear section to a 291-page generator package, and the price often turns on two pages that are far apart: a rating and the breaker table after it, or a duty in the main text and its reversal in an appendix.

The AI Quoting Engine reads the whole package at once and prices each line the way your company prices, with the page it came from. Your estimator spends the time on the few calls that move the price, and your quote can reach the buyer before anyone else's.

Video: AI Quoting for Paralleling Switchgear: From Bid Package to Draft Quote (2:13)

Reuters on equipment lead times →Data Center Knowledge on the market forecast →NIST on the BEA industry figures →

What goes in

Whatever you build, the price is spread across the package.

Electrical equipment is rarely quoted from a part number. Here is what each part of a bid package settles, with an example from a different public package each time.

Specification sections

What the equipment must be and what comes with it: the standard, the construction, the tests, the spares and the warranty.

A paralleling switchgear request asks for a UL 1558 lineup with drawout breakers, each in its own compartment, and a warranty of at least ten years from delivery that covers repair labor and travel.

Fayetteville PWC, PDF pages 41 and 45

One-line diagram and drawings

How many sections, breakers and instruments there are, and where they sit. Quantity is most of the price.

In a 230-page substation switchgear package, the seven drawing sheets at the very back hold the count. The specification text alone cannot give it.

Marblehead Municipal Light Department, pages 224 to 230

Bid form and price form

The shape of your answer: what is one lump sum, what is broken out, and where you list what you leave out.

A battery storage RFP asks for a separate breakdown for each battery, with lines for the switchgear, the relays, the maintenance agreement, material, labor and tax, and a column for make and model.

Las Gallinas Valley Sanitary District, RFP page 27

Scope notes and owner-furnished items

What someone else supplies, so nobody prices it twice or leaves it out.

A Corps of Engineers switchgear section says the government furnishes the protective relays. The test switches, and a calculation showing the current transformers can drive the new relays, stay with the supplier.

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, page 26

What you get back

The same kind of draft for every product, priced your way.

The engine learns how your company prices from your own past bid packages, the quotes you sent and your costing spreadsheets. Each example below comes from a different public package in our guides, and where a dollar figure appears, it comes from an example draft we built with sample rates.

Priced lines with their pages

Every line carries a quantity, a price from your own rates and the page that asks for it.

p.22E-house cooling: seven heat pump units, so any room can lose one

Calls priced both ways

Where two pages disagree, the draft carries the likely reading and prices the other one beside it. Flip the call and the total moves at once.

p.52Paralleling controls in the switchgear or in each generator: $48,600 apart in our sample quote

TBD instead of a guess

A line the package does not settle says TBD, so nobody prices a guess into a firm number.

p.139Generator set: a remote radiator, if one is required

Questions ready for the buyer

Anything the documents cannot answer becomes a question, written so your estimator can paste it into the reply.

p.42Substation switchgear: two spare breakers to price separately, and one blank on the bid form. Where do they go?

Then the quote

Your estimator reviews the draft, changes what they know better, settles the calls and sends the quote. The questions go out early, so the buyer's answers can still change your price before the bid closes.

What it does not do

It does not design the equipment, decide compliance or set your margin, and it never sends anything to your customer. Your team decides every number that goes out.

How it differs

Most quoting tools start from a part or a catalogue. Electrical equipment jobs start from a bid package.

If you are comparing quoting software for electrical equipment manufacturers, it helps to know that each kind was built for a different kind of request. There are good tools in every row, and this is where each one fits.

Kind of tool	What goes in	Where the price comes from	Fits best when
Configure-price-quote toolsTacton, Salesforce Revenue Cloud, Epicor CPQ	A salesperson picks options from your product catalogue.	Pricing rules you set up for each option.	You sell standard models, such as catalogue panelboards or standard transformers, that a few choices describe.
Job-shop quoting softwarePaperless Parts, SecturaFAB, Costimator	Part files and part drawings.	The part's geometry, its operations and your shop rates.	You machine or fabricate single parts from customer drawings.
Quoting inside your ERPJobBOSS², MRPeasy	The materials and routing your estimator types in.	The rates and routings already stored in your ERP.	You run the shop in that ERP and quote work like jobs you have done before.
Drawing data toolsWerk24	Single engineering drawings.	No price. It turns drawings into data for your other systems.	You want drawing data inside your own ERP or quoting tool.
Manufacturing data searchCADDi	Your archive of drawings and manufacturing data.	The past jobs and costs it finds for you.	You quote repeat parts and want to find what you made before.
Should-cost simulationaPriori	3D CAD models.	A simulated cost of making the part.	You run cost engineering or check what suppliers charge.
Mavlon AI Quoting EngineFor engineered equipment quoted from bid packages	The whole bid package: specification, drawings, bid form, addenda and the covering email.	Your own rate book, costing spreadsheets and past quotes.	You build electrical equipment to someone else's specification: switchgear and switchboards, transformers, generator sets, UPS systems, battery storage, e-houses, motor control centers or control panels.

We make Mavlon, so read this table with that in mind. Descriptions of other tools come from their own websites in October 2026, and corrections are welcome at atishay@mavlon.co. Many teams use a configurator for standard models and Mavlon for the jobs that arrive as a bid package.

Where it fits

Built for the bids that tie up your best engineers.

Custom work

Mavlon is the right tool when

The request arrives as a bid package: a specification, a one-line diagram and other drawings, data sheets, a bid form and addenda.
Each job is engineered to the buyer's requirements, whether it is a switchgear lineup, a transformer, a generator package, a UPS system, a battery plant, an e-house or a motor control center.
Your senior estimators or applications engineers spend hours or days reading before anyone can price.
You pass on bids you would like to win, or you answer them late.

Standard work

A different tool fits better when

You sell standard catalogue models that a few options describe. A configurator is faster for that.
Your requests are short and name the product clearly. A good estimator will price them faster than any software.
You are an electrical contractor pricing installation labor from drawings. Estimating software built for takeoff and labor units fits that work better.

We make Mavlon. Corrections are welcome at atishay@mavlon.co.

Prove it on your own quotes

Check it against quotes your team already sent.

Before you trust it with a live bid, we run it on past jobs your team has already quoted, with the pass mark agreed in writing first.

Pick the one product family you quote most, such as switchgear lineups, generator packages or transformers.
Set aside past jobs whose quotes the engine never sees.
The engine prices them from the raw bid packages.
Compare its totals with the prices your team actually sent.

A US manufacturer of engineered waterfront structures went live in production after a test like this. Its drafts come within about 2 to 3 percent of its own price on familiar product lines, and within about 10 to 15 percent on brand-new jobs with many add-ons.

The pilot protocol →The waterfront structures case study →

What we have published so far

A live customer: a US manufacturer of engineered waterfront structures, name withheld at its request.
Six public electrical packages in our guides, from switchgear and paralleling gear to a generator, an e-house and battery storage, each read line by line with its pages.
Demo videos for switchgear, paralleling switchgear, data center generators, e-houses and battery storage, each showing a public bid package turned into a priced draft quote with sample prices.

The pass bar: seven of ten totals within 15 percent, agreed in writing first.

Read before you book

Product pages and guides for electrical equipment.

Product pageAI quoting for switchgear manufacturersFor switchgear and switchboard builders, with a public Corps of Engineers specification as the example.Product pageAI quoting for data center equipmentGenerators, UPS systems, switchgear and cooling, quoted from data center bid packages.Product pageAI quoting for e-house manufacturersPrefabricated switchgear buildings, with a public 202-page package as the example.Product pageAI quoting for BESS integratorsBattery storage RFPs, with a public 154-page request for two batteries as the example.GuideElectrical equipment quoting softwareThe 55 requirements in two switchgear specifications, sorted by which kind of software can price each one.GuideHow to quote switchgearEight steps, read from twelve public specifications.GuideWhat a switchgear bid package asks you to priceA 230-page substation package, and one blank on the bid form.GuideParalleling switchgearA public 92-page standby power package turned into an 11-line draft quote.GuideData center generator sizingFrom the engineer's sizing table to a priced quote, on a public 291-page package.GuideUL 891 vs UL 1558Where eight large owners draw the line between a switchboard and switchgear.GuideMain-tie-main switchgearFive decisions the one-line diagram does not show.ToolSpecification compliance matrixAn Excel template for listing every requirement in a package against your offer.

What is AI quoting for electrical equipment manufacturers?

It means using AI to read a buyer's bid package for electrical equipment, such as switchgear, transformers, generator sets, UPS systems or battery storage, and to draft a priced quote from it. Mavlon's AI Quoting Engine does this in the manufacturer's own pricing, with every line tied to the page it came from, so an estimator can check it and send it. It is built for custom manufacturers, sometimes called engineer-to-order manufacturers, who build each lineup or package to the buyer's specification instead of selling it from a catalogue.

Which electrical products does it cover?

We have published pages for four so far: switchgear and switchboards, data center equipment such as generators and UPS systems, e-houses, and battery storage. The engine is built for the rest of the industry too, including transformers, motor control centers, busway and control panels, whenever the job arrives as a specification, drawings and a bid form. We start with the one product family you quote most, learn your pricing from your past jobs, and test it blind on jobs you already priced before it touches a live bid. How the blind test works.

Is it built for electrical equipment manufacturers in the USA?

Yes. Mavlon, Inc. is a US company, and the AI Quoting Engine is built for electrical equipment manufacturers in the USA and elsewhere who quote to a buyer's specification. Our electrical guides work through public US packages, such as a Corps of Engineers hydroelectric powerhouse, a Massachusetts substation, a Colorado college data center, a North Carolina wastewater plant and the Hanford site in Washington State.

Is it only for the largest electrical equipment manufacturers?

No, but that is where it pays off most. The largest electrical equipment manufacturers answer hundreds of bid packages a year across several product lines and plants, and every one of them starts with the same reading. A smaller builder whose jobs arrive as bid packages can use it too. Either way, the engine is set up for one company at a time, from that company's own past bid packages, quotes and pricing.

How is Mavlon different from a configurator or CPQ tool?

Mavlon is not a CPQ tool. A CPQ tool, short for configure, price, quote, prices the standard options a salesperson picks from your catalogue, and it is very good at that. Mavlon starts one step earlier, from the buyer's documents, and works out what is being asked for before anything can be priced. When we sorted the 55 requirements that change the price in two public switchgear specifications, 17 were options a configurator can price, 6 were price-list look-ups and 32 needed someone to read the document and decide. Many teams use both: a configurator for standard models and Mavlon for jobs that arrive as a bid package. See how the 55 requirements sort.

How is it different from Paperless Parts, SecturaFAB or Costimator?

Those tools price machined and fabricated parts from part files and drawings, using the part's geometry, its operations and the shop's rates. Mavlon prices engineered equipment from a whole bid package, meaning the specification, the one-line diagram and other drawings, the data sheets, the bid form and the addenda, in the manufacturer's own pricing. A job shop quoting single parts is better served by them, and a manufacturer answering bid packages for switchgear, transformers or generator sets is better served by Mavlon.

How does it learn our pricing?

From your own records: past bid packages paired with the quotes you sent, your costing spreadsheets and your rate book. That is where your material costs, labor hours, field service day rate and margin come from. Where a rule is not written down anywhere, it becomes a question for your estimator rather than a guess.

How fast is the draft?

A priced draft comes back within minutes of the upload. The time your estimator then spends depends on how many decisions the package leaves open, and each one arrives already priced both ways.

Does it replace our estimators?

No. It drafts the quote, and your estimator or applications engineer decides. It does not set margins, decide compliance or send anything to your customer. What changes is how many bids your team can answer, and how fast.

Who is behind Mavlon?

Mavlon, Inc. is a US company founded in 2024 by Atishay Jain, an AI engineer. It builds the AI Quoting Engine for custom manufacturers, and it is live in production with a US manufacturer of engineered waterfront structures. Read that case study.

Questions buyers ask

What electrical equipment makers ask us first.

Make your quote the first one the buyer reads.

Book a demo and see the AI Quoting Engine turn an electrical equipment bid package into a priced draft quote, with every line tied to its page, the open calls priced both ways, the unsettled lines marked TBD and the questions ready to send.

Book a Demo