AI quoting for process equipment manufacturers

Win more process equipment bids with the first complete price on the table.

Vessels, exchangers, tanks, skids and treatment equipment are priced from the owner's specification, data sheets and standards, and reading all of it takes days. Mavlon's AI Quoting Engine turns each bid 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 bid packages in our guides

p.157A refinery vessel data sheet gives heat treatment after welding (PWHT) as “NIL”, and page 157 still asks for the heads to be stress relieved.
p.85In an exchanger specification, “welded” on the data sheet means a strength weld that carries the load, and seal welds are not permitted.
p.110A lift station's pump schedule lists two pumps, and its field test runs a third.
p.143A water tank book says no soil report is known, and page 234 points to the one bound into it.

In our sample quotes, the third pump is worth $51,150 and the word “welded” is worth $27,400. The draft prices both readings and writes the question for the customer on the first day, so your team can get the answer and still quote early.

Why speed decides who wins

Every shop on the bid list gets the same package. The first to finish reading has the most time to get it right.

Process equipment is a large business. For process equipment manufacturers in the USA, figures from the Bureau of Economic Analysis, published by NIST, put fabricated metal products, the industry group that includes tanks, vessels, boilers and heat exchangers, at about $122 billion of value added in 2023, measured in 2017 dollars. Value added is what an industry's sales are worth after taking away what it buys in. The packages in this industry are long and the bid rules are strict: in the public tank package in our guides, a question sent less than seven days before bid opening may never be answered. The shop that finishes reading first can still ask its questions in time, and its price reaches the buyer before the others.

$122B

Value added by US fabricated metal products makers in 2023, in 2017 dollars (BEA, via NIST)

125 to 421

Pages in each of the four process equipment packages in our guides

7 days

Before bid opening, after which a question may go unanswered, in the public tank package

Minutes

From a process equipment bid package to a priced draft quote

Most of the work of quoting process equipment is reading. The ten lines of the vessel quote in our guide rest on just nine of its 283 pages, and the bid rules punish a slow or careless read. In that refinery package, an offer that carries any clarification is liable for rejection (page 123). ADNOC's exchanger specification says the most stringent requirement applies unless agreed otherwise (page 17), and a quote with no list of deviations is taken as full compliance (page 18). In the water tank package, questions received less than seven days before bid opening may not be answered (page 13). So the shop that finishes reading first is the one that gets its answers back in time.

The AI Quoting Engine reads the whole package and drafts the quote in your own pricing within minutes, with every line tied to its page and every open question already written. Your estimator can send the questions on the first day, use the answers when they come back, and spend the rest of the time on the few calls that move the price.

Video: AI Quoting for Lift Stations: From Bid Package to Draft Quote (2:14)

What five real bid packages taught us →Where the days go in a quote →The BEA figures, in NIST AMS 600-16 →

What goes in

The data sheet starts the quote. The rest of the package sets the price.

Process equipment is rarely priced from a part number or a catalogue. It is priced from someone else's documents, and the price depends on all of them read together, because they do not always agree.

Data sheets and schedules

The equipment itself: its size, materials, duty and count, and the items still on hold.

The refinery vessel data sheet sets a 3 mm corrosion allowance and puts five items on hold, and the lift station pump schedule names the pump and asks for two of them.

Kochi data sheet, page 230, and Abajo pump schedule, page 421

The owner's specification

How the equipment must be built and tested, including rules the data sheet never mentions.

ADNOC's exchanger specification does not permit plate for tubesheets, and it asks for three hydrotests: the shell side, the tube side, then both sides together.

ADNOC AGES-SP-06-003, pages 41 and 84

The rest of the book

The controls, the lifting gear, the tests, the spares and the warranty, which often sit outside the equipment section.

In the 421-page lift station manual, the control panel rules are on pages 370 and 374, the jib crane is on page 410 and three months of lubricant is on page 102.

Abajo project manual, Santa Fe County

Bid form and addenda

How the low bid is decided, what the price must cover, and what changed after the package was issued.

The water tank bid is compared on the base bid and Alternate No. 1 added together, though that extra piece of work is built only if money remains, and only answers issued as an addendum, a written change to the package, are binding.

Dixie Bend tank package, bid form and instructions to bidders

What you get back

A draft quote your estimator can check, line by line and page by page.

The engine learns how your company prices from your own past bid packages, the quotes you sent and your costing spreadsheets. Each new package then comes back as a draft in that pricing, ready for your estimator to check. The examples below come from four different public packages in our guides.

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 small lines that sit far from the equipment section.

p.410A 1-ton jib crane for lifting the pumps, load tested at 125 percent

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.125Spot radiography, meaning sample X-rays of the welds: $4,600 or $10,400 in our sample quote

TBD instead of a guess

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

p.32Spare tube bundle, only “if required by the COMPANY”

Questions ready for the customer

Anything only the customer or the engineer can answer becomes a question with its page, written so it can be pasted into your reply before the bid closes.

p.2Page 2 says substitutes shall not be permitted. May we offer an equal?

Then the quote

Your estimator reviews the draft, settles the calls, sends the questions and sets the final number. The hours that used to go into turning pages go into the few decisions that win or lose the job.

What it does not do

It does not design the equipment, run code or thermal 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 price a part or a catalogue option. Process equipment is priced from the owner's documents.

There are good quoting tools on the market, and each was built for a different kind of request. Here is where each one fits, so you can pick the right one for process equipment work. Design programs, such as vessel code calculation or thermal design software, design the equipment, and Mavlon prices the job from the customer's documents.

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 air receiver or pump, 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 process equipment to an owner's specification and data sheets: pressure vessels, heat exchangers, tanks, process skids, columns and reactors, or water and wastewater treatment equipment.

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 process equipment bids that take your senior people days to read.

Custom work

Mavlon is the right tool when

The request arrives as a package: the owner's specification and standards, data sheets, drawings, a bid form and addenda.
Each unit is built to one owner's rules, whether it is a vessel, an exchanger, a tank, a skid or a piece of treatment equipment.
Your senior estimator or applications engineer spends days reading before anyone can price.
You pass on bids you could win, or send them late, because nobody has the time to read them.

Standard work

A different tool fits better when

You sell catalogue models, such as standard air receivers or pumps, that a few options describe. A configurator is faster for that.
Your requests are a one-page data sheet with nothing behind it. A good estimator will price those faster than any tool.
You need the equipment designed, with the wall thickness, the nozzle reinforcement or the thermal rating worked out. Vessel design and thermal design programs are built for that.

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

Prove it on your own quotes

Test it blind on equipment you already quoted.

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

Pick one product family you quote often, such as carbon steel vessels, shell and tube exchangers or packaged lift stations.
Set aside past jobs whose quotes the engine never sees.
The engine prices them from the documents the customer sent.
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.
Three process equipment guides: a 283-page refinery vessel package, a 125-page exchanger request and a 421-page lift station manual, each priced line by line with sample rates.

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

Read before you book

Product pages and guides for process equipment.

Product pageAI quoting for pressure vessel manufacturersDrums, separators and storage vessels, priced from the owner's package.Product pageAI quoting for heat exchanger manufacturersShell and tube exchangers, priced from the data sheet and the owner specification behind it.Product pageAI quoting for water and wastewater equipment manufacturersScreens, pumps, clarifiers and tanks, quoted from the whole specification book.GuidePressure vessel specificationsA public 283-page refinery package, priced line by line with sample rates.GuideHeat exchanger specification sheetsWhat each line of the sheet does to the price, and the questions to ask the buyer.GuideLift station specificationsA 421-page county package, and a $51,150 question about the pump count.GuideQuoting water and wastewater equipmentWhere the scope hides in a municipal specification book.GuideElevated water storage tank bidWhich rules actually apply in a 356-page tank package.ToolSpecification compliance matrixAn Excel template for listing every requirement in a package against your offer.

What is AI quoting for process equipment manufacturers?

It is the use of AI to read a customer's bid package for process equipment, meaning the specification, the owner's standards, data sheets, drawings, the bid form and addenda, 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. Most process equipment makers are custom manufacturers, sometimes called engineer-to-order manufacturers: each vessel, exchanger, tank or skid is built to one owner's specification, so there is no catalogue price to look up.

Which kinds of process equipment can it quote?

Process equipment covers a wide range. The Process Equipment Manufacturers' Association, a trade group formed in 1960 and based in Falls Church, Virginia, says it brings together companies that supply equipment and systems to process industries such as food, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, wastewater treatment and mining. The AI Quoting Engine is built for the part of that work that is priced from an owner's documents rather than a catalogue: pressure vessels, heat exchangers, tanks, process skids and modules, columns and reactors, and water and wastewater treatment equipment. So far we have published product pages and guides for pressure vessels, heat exchangers and water and wastewater equipment, including a lift station and an elevated water tank. For the other kinds, we start with the one product family you quote most and test the engine blind on jobs you already priced, so you see how it does on your own equipment first. How the blind test works.

How is Mavlon different from a configurator or CPQ tool?

A configurator prices standard options that a salesperson picks from your catalogue, which suits stock items such as standard air receivers or pumps. Mavlon starts one step earlier, from the owner's documents, and works out what is being asked for before anything can be priced. Many teams use both: a configurator for catalogue models and Mavlon for the jobs that arrive as a bid package.

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 piece of process equipment from the owner's bid package, including the costs the package adds beyond steel and welding, such as heat treatment, radiography, hydrotests, inspection, spares and start-up days, in the manufacturer's own pricing. A shop quoting single parts is better served by them, and a maker answering bid packages for vessels, exchangers, tanks or skids is better served by Mavlon.

Does it do the design calculations?

No. It does not work out wall thicknesses, check nozzle reinforcement or rate an exchanger. Vessel code calculation software and thermal design software such as HTRI or Aspen EDR do that work, and Mavlon prices the job from the customer's documents. Where a package asks for calculations to be sent with the bid, as ADNOC's exchanger specification does on page 46, the draft carries that engineering work as its own priced line, which is $8,600 in our sample quote.

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. If your hours per ton of shell, your welding rates or your field service day rates live in a senior estimator's workbook, the engine learns them from that workbook 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.

How fast is the draft?

A priced draft comes back within minutes of the upload, which leaves time to send your questions while the due date is still days away. The time your estimator then spends depends on how many decisions the package leaves open, and each one arrives already priced both ways, like the choice between two pumps and three in our lift station sample quote. See that call in the guide.

Does it replace our estimators?

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

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 process equipment makers ask us first.

Start every process equipment quote from a priced draft, not from page one.

Book a demo and see the AI Quoting Engine turn a process equipment bid package into a priced draft quote, with every line tied to its page, the open calls priced both ways and the questions ready for the customer.

Book a Demo