AI quoting for industrial machinery manufacturers

Win more machinery orders by answering before the other builders do.

A machinery RFQ arrives as the customer's own requirements, specification and drawings, and someone has to read all of it before anyone can price. Mavlon's AI Quoting Engine turns that package into a priced draft quote in your own pricing within minutes, so your team answers first, bids on more of the work and stops losing jobs to slow quotes. Your estimator checks it and sets the final number.

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From four public machinery requests we read

p.9A federal crane specification asks, in one routine sentence, for nuclear rules of construction on a crane in a dam.
01 14 30A dam crane controls job makes the bidder keep two 100 ton mobile cranes on site for the whole outage.
p.16A fire department wants its custom pumper 120 days after signing, when the normal wait was 12 to 18 months.
p.2A four-page request for a bar screen, a machine that rakes debris out of wastewater, permits no substitutes.

None of these sentences describes the machine, and each one changes the price or decides who can bid. The builder who finds them in the first week still has time to ask the customer.

Why speed decides who wins

The customer sets the deadline, and the reading takes most of it.

Machinery is one of the largest durable goods industries in the United States. Bureau of Economic Analysis figures, as reported by NIST, put the value added by US machinery manufacturing at about $152 billion in 2023, measured in 2017 dollars. For a machine builder in the USA who builds to order, each new job starts with the customer's documents and a due date. In the public fire truck request in our guides, bidders had 21 days, and questions had to arrive five days before the opening. The builder who finds the expensive sentence in week one can ask about it. The one who finds it in week three has to guess, or decline.

$152B

Value added by US machinery makers in 2023, per BEA via NIST

Standards cited by one 27-page federal crane specification

21 days

To answer a public 99-page request for a custom fire truck

Minutes

From a machinery RFQ package to a priced draft quote

A machinery request is long and scattered. The 27-page crane specification also asks for 31 submittals, meaning documents the government must approve before work goes ahead, and the crane controls package we compared it with runs to 452 pages. Reading all of that before anyone can price is what turns one quote into weeks of work.

The AI Quoting Engine reads the whole package and prices it the way your company prices, with every line tied to its page. Your estimator spends the time on the few decisions that move the price, the questions reach the customer while there is still time to answer them, and your quote goes out ahead of the other builders.

Video: Risk Register Example: One Sentence on Page 9 of a Crane Specification (4:22)

Where the days go in a 21 day bid window →NIST on the US manufacturing economy →

What goes in

Everything the customer sent, read together.

A custom machine is rarely quoted from a part number. It is quoted from the customer's own documents, and the price depends on all of them read together. Each example below is from a public document, with its page.

Requirements and specification

What the machine must do, which standards govern it and how it is built.

A federal crane specification names 43 publications on its first three pages. It cites CMAA Specification 70, the crane industry's design standard, in its 2010 edition, in a document dated 2018.

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, 27 pages

Testing and acceptance

The size of the brakes and drives, and a test that somebody has to stage and pay for.

Page 9 sets the load test at 125 percent of rated load, with a tolerance of plus 5 percent. That is why page 13 asks for a hoist brake that holds 131.25 percent.

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, 27 pages

The price schedule

The shape of your answer, and what is priced on a line of its own.

The price schedule on page B-1 has four lines. One of them fixes the manuals and as-built drawings at 1.65 percent of the crane line, so the bidder does not get to price them.

Bureau of Reclamation, 452 pages

The scope around the machine

Removal, site work and every cost that is not the machine itself.

A two-page bid names the bar screen down to the model, "or approved equal". The same two pages ask for removal of the existing equipment, partial demolition of concrete floors and walls, and a new exhaust duct.

Grosse Ile, Michigan, 2 pages

Delivery and award terms

How the bid is judged, and how much time you have to answer.

Page 7 lists five things the award will weigh, and delivery date is one of them. The invitation is dated January 12, 2022, and bids were due February 2, which gave bidders 21 days.

Cumberland Fire District, Rhode Island, 99 pages

Qualification clauses

Whether you can bid at all.

In its quality assurance paragraph, a treatment plant book asks the equipment maker for at least ten installations of identically sized equipment. That one sentence decides who can bid.

Hailey, Idaho, 668 pages

What you get back

A priced draft quote, in the way your company prices.

The engine learns how your company prices from your own past RFQ packages, the quotes you sent and your costing spreadsheets. Every new package then comes back as a draft your estimator can check line by line. The examples below come from public documents that we read for our crane and fire truck guides, so they show what each kind of line looks like.

Priced lines with their pages

Every line carries a quantity, a price from your own rates and the page that asks for it, including the costs that are not part of the machine.

p.23Test weights of 200,000 and 250,000 pounds, supplied by the contractor

Calls priced both ways

Where the documents can be read two ways, the draft carries the likely reading and prices the other one beside it. Flip it and the total moves.

p.79Foam system: the truck is plumbed for one, and none is specified

TBD instead of a guess

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

p.13Hoist rope "the same size as the existing diameter", unknown until someone measures it

Questions ready for the customer

Anything nobody can answer from the documents becomes a question, already written for your reply.

p.16, p.98Is the stainless body warranted for 15 years, as page 16 says, or 20 years, as pages 97 and 98 say?

Then the quote

Your estimator reviews the draft, changes what they know better, settles the open calls and sends the quote. The days that used to go on reading now go on the decisions that win the job.

What it does not do

It does not design the machine, run engineering calculations, 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. A custom machine starts from the customer's documents.

There are good quoting tools on the market, and each was built for a different kind of request. This is where each one fits, so you can choose the right one for machinery work.

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 a catalogue hoist or a standard conveyor, 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 machinery to someone else's specification: custom and special-purpose machines, production lines and automation cells, cranes, or packaging and process machinery.

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 machines that are designed for one customer.

Custom work

Mavlon is the right tool when

The request arrives as the customer's documents: requirements, a specification, drawings, a bid form or price schedule, and addenda.
Each machine, line or crane is designed for that customer and built once.
Tests, delivery terms, warranty and site work carry as much risk as the machine itself.
Your senior engineers spend days reading before anyone can price, so you decline bids you would like to win, or answer them late.

Standard machines

A different tool fits better when

You sell standard models with options, such as catalogue hoists or conveyors. 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 machine single parts from 3D files. Job-shop quoting software is built for that.

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

Prove it on your own quotes

Test it blind on machines you already priced.

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 one product family you quote often, such as special-purpose machines, assembly cells or overhead cranes.
Set aside past jobs whose quotes the engine never sees.
The engine prices them from the raw documents.
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.
The Cape Vincent demo: a public 179-page bid package turned into a priced draft quote.
The Montanstahl Group case study: RFQ screening across three steel plants. For 85% of incoming RFQs, the AI suggestion was directly usable or needed only minor adjustment.
Our machinery guides: a federal crane specification and a custom fire truck request, each read page by page by a person.

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

Read before you book

Product pages and guides for machinery builders.

Product pageAI quoting for overhead crane manufacturersWhat a public 27-page crane specification asks the crane builder to price.Product pageAI quoting for custom machine and equipment buildersFor machines designed for one customer and quoted from that customer's documents.Product pageProduction line quotingFor builders of production lines and automation cells, quoted from a layout and a requirements document.Product pageBody-in-white line quotingFor builders of the welding lines that join a car body before it is painted.Product pageAI quoting for fire truck manufacturersWhat a public 99-page request for a custom pumper asks the builder to price.GuideOverhead bridge crane specificationsA 100 ton dam crane, 27 pages, read line by line.GuideQuoting custom equipment before the design existsWhat three public bid packages had in common.GuideJPH cycle time estimationHow a target in jobs per hour sets the seconds each production cell has for every part.ToolSpecification compliance matrixAn Excel template for answering a specification line by line.

What is AI quoting for industrial machinery manufacturers?

It is software that reads a customer's request for a machine, meaning the requirements document, the specification, the drawings, the bid form and any addenda, and drafts a priced quote from it within minutes. 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 machinery manufacturers, sometimes called engineer-to-order manufacturers, who design each machine, line or crane for one customer instead of selling it from a catalogue.

Which kinds of machinery does it cover?

It is built for any machine that is quoted from a customer's documents rather than from a catalogue. We have pages for overhead cranes, custom and special-purpose machines, production lines and automation cells, body-in-white lines (the welding lines that join a car body before it is painted) and fire trucks. There is no page yet for packaging or process machinery, and the method is the same: we start with the one product family you quote most and test it blind on jobs you already priced. How the blind test works.

How is Mavlon different from a machine configurator?

A configurator prices standard options that a salesperson picks from your catalogue, which suits standard machines with a fixed list of options. Mavlon starts one step earlier, from the customer's documents, and works out what is being asked for before anything can be priced. Many machinery manufacturers use both: a configurator for standard models and Mavlon for the jobs that arrive as a customer's specification.

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 a whole machine, line or crane from the customer's package, including the costs that sit outside the machine, such as tests, test weights, training, delivery and site work, in the manufacturer's own pricing. A job shop quoting single parts is better served by them, and a builder answering specifications for whole machines is better served by Mavlon.

Does it design the machine or do the engineering?

No. It does not design the machine, size the drives or run any engineering calculation. It reads the customer's documents, works out what each one asks for and prices it from your own past jobs and rates. Your engineers still design every machine, and anything the documents leave open comes back as a line marked TBD or as a written question, not as a guess.

How does it learn our pricing?

From your own records: past RFQ packages paired with the quotes you sent, your costing spreadsheets and your rate book. If your hours per station or per ton of structure live in a senior estimator's spreadsheet, the engine learns them from that spreadsheet and the jobs priced with it. Where a rule is not written down anywhere, it becomes a question for your estimator rather than a guess.

Does it replace our estimators or application engineers?

No. It drafts the quote, and your people decide. Your application engineers still choose the design, and your estimator checks the draft, settles the open calls and sets the final number. It does not set margins or send anything to your customer. What changes is how many requests your team can answer, and how fast.

Our requests are private specifications, not public bids. Does it still apply?

Yes. Many machinery requests are private: a customer's requirements document, a set of drawings and a covering email. Reading them is the same job. The examples on this page are public documents only because private ones are confidential. The fair test is one of your own past jobs, under a signed non-disclosure agreement.

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 machine builders ask

What machinery manufacturers ask us first.

Answer more machinery RFQs, and answer them first.

Book a demo and see the AI Quoting Engine turn an RFQ package into a priced draft quote, with every line tied to its page, every open call priced both ways and the questions ready to send to your customer.

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