For switchgear and switchboard builders

AI quoting for switchgear and switchboard manufacturers.

Give it the customer's specification and one-line diagram. It lists every requirement that changes the price, each with its page number, shows where the documents disagree, and drafts the first quote in your own pricing logic. Your estimator checks it and decides the number.

Book a Demo How we test it →

From a public 35-page specification

p.9Momentary rating 135 kA. Short-time rating 25 kA.
p.10Breakers close and latch at 65 kA peak, which is 25 kA times 2.6. That fits a 25 kA lineup. The 135 kA on page 9 belongs to one about twice as strong.
p.28One complete spare breaker, identical to those supplied.

Pages 9 and 10 cannot both be right. Only the engineer can say which one was meant, so it reaches your estimator as a question, not as a guess.

What we found when we counted

On custom switchgear, most of the quote is reading.

We read two public switchgear specifications line by line: a 5 kV metal-clad lineup for a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers powerhouse, and a 15 kV class fused switch lineup for a veterans' home in Illinois. We logged every requirement that changes the price.

Page 9 of a public switchgear specification, with a 135 kA momentary rating outlined beside a 25 kA short-time rating: the kind of conflict AI quoting for switchgear has to put in front of an estimator — Page 9 of Section 26 13 26.00 26, Amendment 0002, as issued. Outlines added.

Requirements that change the price

Choices from your own catalogue

Look-ups from your price list

Needed someone to read and decide

The 32 are ordinary. Ratings that disagree with each other. Counts that only the drawings settle. Scope that belongs to the installer or the owner. Services described in words that you have to turn into days. None of them is in a price book, because none of them is a property of your product. They belong to this document, for this job.

The people who do this work say the same thing. In 34 job postings for people who quote switchgear, 31 describe the job as reading the customer's specifications.

See all 55, with page numbers →The 34 job postings →

The whole package, not only the ratings

Every document in the request settles a different part of the price.

Mavlon reads all of it together, because the answers are not in one place and not in one form. Each example below is from a public document, with its page.

The specification section

Ratings, construction, tests, spares and services.

A 135 kA momentary rating on page 9, and a breaker table on page 10 that only fits a 25 kA lineup.

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, 35 pages

The one-line diagram and elevations

How many sections, breakers and instruments. Quantity is most of the price.

Seven drawing sheets at the very back hold the count. The specification text alone cannot give it.

Marblehead Municipal Light Department, 230 pages

The bid form and data sheet

The shape of your answer, and what you promise by saying nothing.

One blank for the whole assembly on page 22, and a clause on page 42 that tells you to price two spare breakers separately.

Marblehead Municipal Light Department

The general sections

Hours that never get a line of their own.

A design and manufacturing schedule with thirteen named milestones, reissued every month, and a 60-month warranty on the whole assembly.

Marblehead Municipal Light Department

The amendments

What changed since you last priced it.

An Amendment 3 where only page 1 carries the new date, while page 12 still shows the change marks.

Illinois Capital Development Board, 19 pages

The owner's standard behind it

What this owner always asks for.

25 percent spare breakers at one owner. A spare parts list in a binder at another.

Metrolinx; Department of Veterans Affairs

What your estimator gets

AI quoting for switchgear, as a reading you can check line by line.

Four kinds of line come back. The examples are from our own reading of the public Corps of Engineers specification, which is published in full with page numbers.

Every requirement that changes the price

Each one carries the page it came from, so checking it takes seconds instead of a search.

p.28One complete spare 5 kV vacuum breaker, identical to those supplied.

Whose it is

Yours, the installer's or the owner's. The section is written to the contractor, not to you.

p.26Protective relays furnished by the government. The test switches and the CT burden analysis stay with you.

Questions for the engineer

Where the document disagrees with itself, both readings are stated. Nothing is averaged and nothing is quietly chosen.

p.9, p.10A 135 kA momentary rating, or the 65 kA peak the breaker table works out to?

Services you price in days

Witnessed tests, field service and training, pulled out of the prose so they reach the quote.

p.34A field service engineer at both the contractor's and the government's commissioning. Training may be split across different weeks.

Then the quote

A first draft, priced from your own rules: your rates, your formulas and your past quotes. The clarifications list carries every judgement into the quotation, and the margin stays with you.

What it does not do

It is not a takeoff tool, so your estimator confirms the count from the one-line diagram. It does not decide your margin, and it does not decide whether you bid.

Not a configurator

A configurator starts from your catalogue. Mavlon starts from the customer's document.

Custom work

Mavlon is the right tool when

The request is an engineer's specification and a set of drawings, written for one project.
The document disagrees with itself. One Illinois specification asks for a gray finish on page 6 and an olive green one on page 16.
The count is on the drawings and the text does not match it. The same specification has ten bay headings, numbered 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 46, 5, 67, 8 and 79.
Part of the scope is somebody else's. On a Corps of Engineers job the protective relays are furnished by the government, and you only learn that on page 26.
The services are described in words, and you have to turn them into days and trips.

Catalogue work

A configurator is the right tool when

The order arrives as a schedule or a list of ratings, and your catalogue covers it.
The customer's rules are simple thresholds. Dartmouth College's standard asks for drawout breakers at 1,000 A and above. That is a rule you load once.
You sell the same lineups to the same owners again and again.
What you are short of is speed on repeat work.

We make Mavlon, so weigh this sort with that in mind. If most of your quotes are catalogue lineups, a configurator will serve you better than we will, and we would rather say so now. Corrections are welcome at atishay@mavlon.co.

Do not take our word for it

Test it on a specification you can download.

The Corps of Engineers specification is public. Hand it to any vendor, including us, and see whether the software finds these without being told where to look.

The 135 kA momentary rating on page 9, against the 25 kA short-time rating beside it and the 65 kA peak on page 10.
That the protective relays are furnished by the government (page 26), and that the test switches and the CT burden analysis are still yours.
The complete spare breaker in the spares list on page 28.
The capacitor trip device that is required on one breaker only, 3AG2, on page 24.
That the field service engineer attends two separate commissioning periods, on page 34.

Score it the way you would score a new hire. Did it find the item? Did it cite the page? Did it show you the conflict, or quietly pick a side?

The full test list →Our pilot protocol and pass bar →

What we have published so far

A 179-page public waterfront package: 214 statements, each cited to its page, and 7 places where the drawings and the specification disagree.
A 668-page treatment plant specification book: the 14 sections relevant to the equipment, found without being told where to look.
No published run on a switchgear package yet. The switchgear readings on this page were done by hand, for our guides.
The fair test is a quote of your own that you have already priced.

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

We did the reading first

Seven guides and two tools for people who quote switchgear.

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.GuideElectrical equipment quoting softwareThe 55 requirements, sorted by which kind of software can price each one.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.GuideSwitchgear submittalWhat engineers reject after award, from four public review records.GuideSwitchgear quotation specialistWhat 34 job postings say the work is, and what it pays.ToolSpecification compliance matrixAn Excel template and 46 switchgear checks.ToolBusbar calculatorSize, ampacity, weight and cost for a switchboard lineup.

What does AI quoting for switchgear look like in practice?

The software reads the documents your customer sent: the specification section, the one-line diagram, the bid form and any amendments. It lists every requirement that changes the price with the page it came from, sorts whose scope each one is, shows where the documents disagree, and drafts a first quote from your own pricing rules. Your estimator reviews it and decides the price.

Is Mavlon a CPQ or a switchgear configurator?

No. It works from the opposite end. A configurator starts from a model of your products and prices the options somebody selects. Mavlon starts from the customer's documents and works out what is being asked for, which on custom work is the part nobody has a model for. If you already price standard lineups in a configurator, that stays where it is.

Does it work for switchboards as well as switchgear?

Yes. The reading is the same job for a UL 891 switchboard, UL 1558 switchgear or medium-voltage metal-clad gear. The document decides which standard applies, and the two words are often used loosely inside one section, so that is one of the first things to settle.

Does it read the one-line diagram, or only the text?

It reads the drawings in the package alongside the specification and reports where the two disagree, with both pages cited. It is not a takeoff tool. Your estimator still confirms the count of sections, breakers and devices from the one-line diagram.

How do we find out whether it works on our quotes?

Bring a quote you have already priced. The pilot is a blind test on your own past quotes, scored against a pass bar that is agreed in writing before anything runs. The whole protocol is published on our pilot page. Read the pilot protocol.

Who sees our customers' specifications?

An NDA is signed before any document of yours moves. Deployment options, encryption and the controls that keep your documents out of model training are set out on our security page. Read the security page.

Questions switchgear builders ask

Asked plainly, answered in writing.

Bring one switchgear package you have already priced.

Live, on a call. Compare what it finds against what your team found. Rather not share a document on day one? We can read a public switchgear specification together instead, and an NDA is signed before anything of yours moves.

Book a Demo