# Mavlon

> AI quoting for custom manufacturers. Mavlon reads the bid package (drawings, spec book, email threads), builds the scope, flags every place the documents disagree, and drafts the quote in the shop's OWN pricing logic, with every extracted line cited to the page it came from. It carries no cost models and invents no prices; it is not a should-cost simulator (that is aPriori's lane, from 3D CAD). Margin and the final number stay with the estimator. The same reading engine also powers first article inspection (ballooned drawings, pre-filled AS9102 Form 3) and cited ERP operations answers. Deployed in production at the Montanstahl Group.

Key checkable facts (quoting): on the public Cape Vincent, NY waterfront bid package (179 pages, downloadable from the town's website), the engine read the full set in 44 seconds, extracted 214 statements each cited to its source page, and found 7 places where the drawings and the specification disagree. Pricing learns from three inputs, all the customer's own: past quotes, the shop's internal formulas (Excel rules become product rules; the spreadsheet is replaced, the logic is not), and the estimator's corrections. Engagements start with a blind pilot: the engine prices completed jobs it has never seen against a threshold agreed in writing.

## AI quoting (primary lane)

- [Homepage: how it works, the four jobs, FAQ](https://mavlon.co/)
- [AI Estimating for Custom Manufacturing](https://mavlon.co/ai-estimating): drafted quotes in your logic, no CPQ needed
- [Quoting Software: 8 Tools Compared](https://mavlon.co/quoting-software): Mavlon, aPriori, Costimator, Paperless Parts, SecturaFab, Tempus Tools, ECI JobBOSS2, Salesforce CPQ - honest multi-lane guide
- [From RFQ Inbox to Clean CPQ Record](https://mavlon.co/rfq-to-cpq): the CPQ intake lane
- [Mavlon vs aPriori](https://mavlon.co/vs/apriori): your quote vs should-cost, two different questions
- [aPriori Alternative for Custom Manufacturers](https://mavlon.co/apriori-alternative)
- [Case Study: Montanstahl Group](https://mavlon.co/montanstahl-case-study): RFQ screening across 3 plants, graded 85%+ by their engineers, seconds instead of hours
- [Case Study: A global minerals manufacturer on SAP](https://mavlon.co/minerals-case-study): 31,000+ ERP knowledge sources unified across 148 sites into one cited assistant, 38% faster support resolution, delivered with S P A plc; client name withheld
- [Video: AI Quoting for Custom Manufacturing, the complete guide (8 min)](https://youtu.be/XFandac73Fs): vendor-neutral reference covering what AI quoting is, why catalogue-based quoting software does not fit custom work, the four jobs inside a quote, what a bid package contains, where the price comes from (past quotes, the shop's own rules, corrections), what an accuracy claim actually measures, the three things this software cannot do (decide margin, originate engineering, replace a pricing process that never existed), how AI quoting differs from CPQ and should-cost, and five checks to demand before buying
- [Video: from bid package to draft quote, the whole flow (4 min)](https://youtu.be/6SPk5va--XQ): a complete walkthrough on the public Cape Vincent, NY waterfront package (179 pages): the set going in, the draft quote priced on the shop's own rates, the three "calls" where the documents do not settle the question (each carrying the reading taken, the case against it, and one signed figure), flipping a call so the total follows without re-running, the two lines that say TBD rather than guess a pile diameter the package never gives, per-line citations back to the source page, and the exclusions. Figures in the walkthrough are representative; the flow and interface are the product
- [Video: reading a real 179 page bid package](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2YeiFhLwbnM): spec says 48 inches, drawing says 60
- [Video: why there is no quoting system for custom manufacturing](https://youtu.be/wRaLS5VqJZU)
- [Video: quoting is hard, here is the part we do not automate](https://youtu.be/PIy--ZKNtBI): a custom quote is four jobs; reading, scoping and arithmetic are mechanical, deciding the margin is judgment and stays with the estimator
- [Guide: using ChatGPT to read bid packages, and what breaks](https://mavlon.co/post/using-chatgpt-to-read-bid-packages-what-actually-breaks)
- [Guide: Tacton alternative for custom manufacturing](https://mavlon.co/post/tacton-alternative-for-custom-manufacturing): honest lane-sorting guide; when to stay on Tacton, real CPQ alternatives, and why bid-package work needs package-reading AI instead of a configurator
- [Guide: AI for quoting complex marine structures, a practical guide](https://mavlon.co/post/ai-for-quoting-complex-marine-structures): what AI can and cannot take off a marine estimator's desk (reading, scoping, arithmetic yes; judgment and margin no), why takeoff-style construction AI misses marine work, the marine-specific checks any system must pass (float family gate, deck-top freeboard datum, wind code edition, wave limit, ADA length from water range, span-boundary book, pile guide assumption, clear-to-outside width, hardware clause applicability), the DIY wall, and a published blind-test bar (7 of 10 held-out job totals within 15 percent); evidence: the public Cape Vincent package read in 44 seconds with 214 cited statements and 7 conflicts, and our own 44-class failure registry with zero arithmetic failures
- [Guide: quoting custom gangways and docks, the hard part](https://mavlon.co/post/quoting-custom-gangways-and-docks): the nine decisions a bid package never makes for a dock or gangway quote (float family, freeboard datum, silent loads, undimensioned lengths, piles by others, standard vs spec, shipping, custom pieces, design responsibility), grounded on a public 179-page package and a public bid tab
- [Guide: Epicor CPQ alternative for custom manufacturing](https://mavlon.co/post/epicor-cpq-alternative-for-custom-manufacturing): configured custom vs engineered custom; configurator-lane alternatives, wrong-lane signals, and the blind-test pilot protocol
- [Guide: quoting water and wastewater equipment from a spec book](https://mavlon.co/post/quoting-water-and-wastewater-equipment): for screen, pump, clarifier, blower and tank suppliers quoting municipal treatment work; why the equipment scope is distributed across sections that never reference each other (on a public 668-page Hailey, Idaho headworks package, 14 separate sections carried price-changing requirements); the seven decisions the package never makes (substitution, motor and control boundary, coatings, testing and start-up, anchorage, warranty start, schedule reality); what changes by equipment type; an efficient reading order; and why the reply email is part of the quote
- [Manufacturing quoting process: nine stations, six failures](https://mavlon.co/manufacturing-quoting-process): the hub page on quoting systems for the people who own quoting (VP sales, CIO, CFO, owner) at custom manufacturers; the nine station quoting process flow chart (request, bid or no bid, reading, scope and assumptions, cost build, price, review, submission, feedback) and why most companies can draw only four; the six failure points (reading unowned, scope decided silently, rules in heads and formulas, margin by feel, one person one file, no feedback loop), none of them arithmetic; where quote turnaround time actually goes; what happens at 25 estimators and four plants; the fixed price contract risk language in public manufacturers' 10-K filings (Graham quoted verbatim); the five audit instruments (quote genealogy, two estimator test, rule capture ratio with a three job admission bar, single point of failure register, feedback check); manufacturing quoting best practices in order of payoff with software last; buy, build or combine by what the quote starts from; and the anonymised story of a central European label maker whose retiring estimator's Excel tools nobody else could maintain
- [Quoting system audit for custom manufacturers](https://mavlon.co/quoting-system-audit): Mavlon's service offer, two to three weeks, five instruments run on the company's own quote archive with its estimators; deliverables are a written pricing identity, a quoting risk register, the measured two estimator variance, a question list for estimators and a keep, buy, build or combine recommendation; priced after the first call, never before seeing the archive; two of the three outcomes are not Mavlon software
- [Quoting system health check](https://mavlon.co/tools/quoting-system-health-check): free twelve question self assessment scored in the browser, no email gate; six areas (reading, scope and variance, rule capture, single points of failure, feedback loop, tooling fit), a 0 to 36 score with bands (memory not method, method in places, a system), the two audit instruments to run first, and which tooling lane the company is in
- [Quoting custom equipment before the design exists](https://mavlon.co/quoting-custom-equipment): the cross-industry anchor page; what three public bid packages from three unrelated industries (Cape Vincent NY marine 179pp, Hailey ID water reclamation 668pp, Marblehead MA switchgear 230pp) have structurally in common; five properties true in all three: the document is written by an outside engineer who does not work for you, your product is a minority of the pages, the answer is a single lump sum smaller than the question, silence on the deviations clause equals full compliance, and the parts disagree so reconciling them is the bidder's job; why catalogue, configured, cost-plus and takeoff pricing models do not transfer; where the estimating hours actually go (search and judgement, not arithmetic); the four conditions that must hold before a number exists; and an honest split of what software can and cannot take off a person
- [Guide: a fire truck request for proposal (fire apparatus RFP), 84 pages of yes or no](https://mavlon.co/post/fire-truck-request-for-proposal): for fire apparatus manufacturers, dealers and specialty vehicle builders; read from a public 99-page package (Cumberland Fire District, Rhode Island, RFP No. 2022-01, custom stainless steel pumper, January 2022) and compared with three others (Lowndes County GA LC-2022-02, Kingsland GA 2023, Charleston SC 2017); how the YES and NO compliance column works and why an unlisted deviation is grounds for rejection; the qualification section that is evaluated before the truck (15 EVT-certified technicians, $1,000,000 parts inventory, authorized service for Hale, Waterous and Darley); about 60 brand-named components on which exceptions are not allowed and 20 no-exception clauses across 17 pages; catalogue leftovers that show the specification was generated from a truck builder's option library (a superseded part number note from June 2015, dimensions for cabs and engines not being bought, 27 unresolved if-equipped conditionals); the identical "extensive research and careful analysis" paragraph appearing in three departments' documents across two states; a 120 calendar day delivery requirement against a normal 12 to 18 month lead time; a warranty conflict inside one document (15 versus 20 years on the stainless body, 20 versus 25 years on frame corrosion) where altered forms mean disqualification; a foam system that is plumbed, gauged and bracketed but never specified; and the costs on the last page that go into one total price ($10,000 allowance, ladders, deck gun, lettering, five-year telematics data plan)
- [Guide: overhead bridge crane specifications, a 100-ton example read closely](https://mavlon.co/post/overhead-bridge-crane-specifications): for overhead crane, hoist and lifting equipment manufacturers and crane service companies; read from two public federal documents (U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Section 41 22 13.13 Bridge Cranes for the 100-ton gate tower crane at Clearwater Dam, Missouri, reference CDS18006, June 2018 with Amendment 0001; and Bureau of Reclamation Solicitation 140R1021B0004, Grand Coulee Third Power Plant Crane Controls Modifications, 452 pages); how an unfinished guide-specification edit leaves requirements for a cab, a second crane, outdoor service and a wind alarm on a one-crane indoor pendant job; a single sentence requiring nuclear certification to ASME NOG-1 on a flood control dam crane; an amendment that switched to two-speed control but left SCR drive isolation transformers, DC brakes, a 60 Hz frequency limit and EMI shielded enclosures in place; why 131.25 percent appears (125 percent load test times a plus 5 percent tolerance); temperature rise figures (239 F and 220 F) that are 115 C and 105 C converted as absolute temperatures instead of differences; contractor-supplied test weights of 200,000 and 250,000 pounds with 90, 30 and 14 day notice gates; an amendment making the crane contractor provide PE-stamped load calculations for the concrete intake structure; 31 government-approval submittals and 43 referenced standards; and from Grand Coulee, a price schedule where documentation is fixed at 1.65 percent of the crane line and a requirement for two 100-ton mobile cranes on site for the whole outage
- [Guide: how long should a quote be valid for, shown through one public equipment preselection](https://mavlon.co/post/how-long-should-a-quote-be-valid-for): for process equipment, heat exchanger, boiler and water and wastewater equipment manufacturers and their proposal teams; follows one public procurement end to end (City of Aberdeen, Maryland, Advanced Wastewater Treatment Plant heat exchanger replacement, project 11205021: preselection Bid 20-11, December 2019 to January 2020, and construction Bid 20-12, August to October 2020); what equipment preselection is and how it differs from ordinary bidding; a reissued Section 11395 whose tracked changes show a one-manufacturer data sheet being opened up (boiler output 825,000 to 725,000 BTU/hr, fired surface and heated surface minimums deleted, sphere size 3-1/2 to 3.0 inch, headloss 3.5 to 8.8 ft) while the product description nine pages later still requires 3-1/2 inch spheres, 87 sq ft and concentric tubes; the notarised performance affidavit signed by a vice president or higher; a quote valid for 180 days that expired on July 13, 2020, three weeks before the construction bid was advertised, and was still being carried at day 260; the bid form clause fixing the equipment price at $252,000 and making the price, manufacturer and proposal public; the 300 calendar day contract built from the manufacturer's stated lead times with six days of float and liquidated damages; design changes after the price was fixed (reduced shipped height for clearance, a $25,000 pipe removal allowance, 5 ton units against a 3 ton crane, phased start-up of two units); a one year warranty that starts at Substantial Completion, more than fifteen months after shipment; and a nine point checklist for what to write into a preselection proposal
- [Guide: tribal knowledge in manufacturing, the quoting desk version](https://mavlon.co/post/tribal-knowledge-in-manufacturing): for owners, VPs of sales and CIOs at custom manufacturers; why tribal knowledge concentrates on the quoting desk (the floor has work instructions, the quoting desk has one person’s spreadsheet); BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook figures for cost estimators (226,400 jobs in 2025, employment projected to decline 3 percent by 2035, about 17,600 openings a year all from replacement and retirement) and the Manufacturing Institute and Deloitte 2024 projection (3.8 million workers needed by 2033, 1.9 million possibly unfilled); tribal versus institutional versus tacit knowledge; eight real quoting desk examples (a percentage added to a stale supplier price, a structural member folded into a rate cell, an unwritten margin identity, scrap rate by feel, the freeboard datum, template leftover clauses, constant but underivable allowances, shop rate eras); the cost in variance, speed, a dated single point of failure and disclosed fixed price risk; the four plant version; why interviews fail and the archive does not; a tribal knowledge inventory table template (item, holder, where it lives, written, three job test, what closes it); a twelve step knowledge transfer checklist for a retiring estimator; and a straight answer on whether the term is offensive and what to say instead
- [Guide: fixed price contract risk starts at the quote, read from 32 public manufacturers’ 10-K filings](https://mavlon.co/post/fixed-price-contract-risk): for CFOs, VPs of sales and owners at custom manufacturers who quote on fixed price; what fixed price contract risk is and who bears it (Textron, Matrix Service verbatim); firm fixed price versus fixed price with economic price adjustment versus fixed price incentive (Oshkosh, BWX Technologies, Matrix); the identical risk sentences shared between Babcock & Wilcox and BWX Technologies, between Orion, Great Lakes Dredge and Mirion, between CECO and Fuel Tech, between ESCO and Moog; a tally of what 32 filings blame (inflation, tariffs, steel, subcontractors, labour productivity, weather, scope) and that almost all of it happens after signature; the five that describe estimating as work (Powell, Ducommun, Thermon, Astronics, Matrix Service, which names project estimators); the numbers (Moog: fixed price is 90 percent of over-time sales; Tecnoglass: $263.6 million of 2025 revenue; Textron: a $60 million to $110 million unfavourable adjustment on a largely fixed price option from when the program was bid; CPI Aerostructures: a Request for Equitable Adjustment to Boeing on a 2019 firm fixed price contract); why the cost to complete becomes a Critical Audit Matter after signature (Tecnoglass, Babcock & Wilcox, Koil; 170 filings contain "estimated costs to complete") while the same estimate is untested before the bid; the four quoting stations where the risk is created; a pre-bid control set mapping the five audit instruments to auditor procedures; escalation and validity clauses; and the method used to read the filings
- [Guide: CPQ vs ERP for quoting, buy, build or combine, decided by what the quote starts from](https://mavlon.co/post/cpq-vs-erp): for owners, COOs, VPs of sales and IT leads at custom manufacturers choosing what to replace a spreadsheet and one estimator with; what a quoting system is (nine stations); the two problems hiding inside the word quoting (what needs pricing versus how to make it and what the route costs, the second being a print MIS problem for a label and overlay maker); what an ERP quoting module and a CPQ each cover, station by station, in a table with a spreadsheet and a reading engine alongside; when the ERP module is enough (most quotes for parts made before; the eighty of a hundred test) and how it fails (the spreadsheet beside the ERP); when CPQ is the right buy (the customer can configure without an engineer) and its two underestimated costs (rules to write, an owner forever); how CPQ and ERP work together and where the costed bill of material seam breaks (drifting standard costs; the engineered job forced through a text box); why neither reads a customer’s document, with the 99 page fire truck request, the 27 page crane specification citing 43 standards, the 668 page wastewater package and the 179 page marine package as evidence; why implementations stall in month six (unwritten rules; the quote genealogy instrument; Textron’s sixty to a hundred and ten million dollar charge from when the program was bid); when build is right (one family, written rules, low volume, an owner) and the five walls; combine as the usual honest answer with a composite two plant example (configurator for the standard tank line, reading step for custom vessels, one pricing identity, the ERP’s costed bill of material as the seam); eight questions that decide the lane; three questions to ask on any demo; what moves the cost with no numbers; and a six row decision table including the print MIS row
- [Guide: pre bid risk assessment for custom manufacturers, a register read from the customer’s document](https://mavlon.co/post/pre-bid-risk-assessment): for estimators, sales managers and owners at custom manufacturers deciding whether and how to bid on a customer’s document; what a pre bid risk assessment is for a manufacturer versus for a construction owner or a proposal team; why five factor bid no bid lists (location, competition, client) miss the money, with the ASME NOG-1 sentence on page 9 of a federal crane specification, a fire truck warranty that changes length between page 16 and page 98, a 120 day delivery against a 12 to 18 month lead time, and $1,000 a day liquidated damages against unnamed milestones on a tank bid; seven risk classes (scope silence, internal contradiction, standards and approvals load, commercial terms, amendments, substitution language, unwritten pricing rules) each with where it hides and a public example; the reading order for a one sitting first pass; a six column register template with eight example rows from public packages; three buckets (price it, exclude it, walk) instead of a one to five matrix; a ten question bid no bid checklist where seven questions are about the document; why contingency is the sum of bracketed exposures rather than a flat percentage, with a public six bidder spread of $110 to $300 per square foot; validity and escalation as rows you write out of the quote; scoring the register against actuals on won jobs as the pre signature version of the auditors’ cost to complete test; and where reading software helps (the cited first pass) and where it must not (the judgment)
- [Guide: quote turnaround time on engineered quotes, where the days actually go](https://mavlon.co/post/quote-turnaround-time): for owners, sales managers and estimators at custom manufacturers whose quotes take weeks; the three clocks (customer’s window, internal clock, validity clock after submission, with a public quote asked to hold 180 days and held on day 260); a segment table of an engineered quote inside the 21 day window a fire district gave bidders (intake, reading, questions, supplier quotes, cost build, review, submission) as it usually runs versus with the reading first; the buyer’s clock written into public packages (questions cut off five days before opening; questions less than seven days out may not be answered and only addenda bind; a written question to the contracting officer; a price firm 60 days on equipment due 60 weeks after order); quote lead time versus delivery lead time versus turnaround; time to first number as the metric that exposes the reading; the reading step with an output; the four plant version of the same clock; what to tell the customer while they wait (acknowledge, budgetary first number with assumptions, decline early); seven moves to improve quote response time and three that do not work; six quoting KPIs with definitions and no invented benchmarks; volume changes the clock (the label maker’s hours versus engineered weeks); where software helps (214 requirements cited in 44 seconds on a 179 page package; 14 sections in 102 seconds on 668 pages) and where the rest is process
- [Guide: what a switchgear bid package actually asks you to price](https://mavlon.co/post/switchgear-bid-package): for medium-voltage switchgear and substation equipment manufacturers; read from a public 230-page package (Marblehead Municipal Light Department, Village Substation, Bid No. 909614-02); why 230 pages of requirements resolve to one lump-sum blank on the bid form; the deviations clause that makes silence a promise of full compliance; two spare circuit breakers the specification says to price separately with no line on the bid form to put them on, and why that alone makes two honest bids non-comparable; a firm 60-day price against 60-week ARO delivery; the bid data sheet as published evaluation criteria; two near-identical sections (26 13 26.21 at 15 kV and 26 13 26.31 at 25 kV) side by side; why one lineup carries three different voltages (15.0 kV class, 13.8 kV nominal, 13.2 kV operating) and the drawings label it differently from the specification; and a documented momentary-current ambiguity where closing and latching is given as 68 kA peak on one page and 68 kA rms on another
- [Guide: elevated water storage tank bid, which rules actually apply](https://mavlon.co/post/elevated-water-storage-tank-bid): for steel tank fabricators and heavy-fabrication bidders on municipal work; read from a public 356-page package (Dixie Bend Tank Replacement, South Eastern Water Association, Pulaski County KY, engineer Kenvirons, filed with the Kentucky PSC); how to tell a live contract rule from dormant template boilerplate, since these documents are assembled from standard EJCDC forms; four worked examples from one package: a Price-Plus-Time scoring procedure whose limits still read "[number]" and which cannot run because the Notice to Proceed fixes Substantial Completion at 90 days for everyone, a unit-price payment clause on a schedule where all eight items are lump sum quantity one, milestone liquidated damages for milestones the contract never names, and Supplementary Condition 5.03 stating that no subsurface reports are known to the Owner or Engineer while the package contains a 22-page geotechnical exploration report that assigns subsidence risk to the Owner; also base-bid-plus-alternate scoring where you are compared and bonded on work that may never be ordered, why the window for an "or equal" closes before bids open rather than after, the American Iron and Steel domestic sourcing obligation on a USDA Rural Development funded project, and what AWWA D100 plus a 100 mph wind load fix versus what the fabricator still has to design
- [Guide: why quoting is hard to automate](https://mavlon.co/post/why-quoting-is-hard-to-automate): code has four structural advantages for automation (feedback loops, documentation, version control, delegation) and quoting has none; the Pocock framework applied to custom manufacturing; why CPQ and generic AI tools break on bid-package work; what building the harness looks like (corpus mining, blind test, rate-era tracking); the manufactured feedback loop
- [Guide: how to capture estimator knowledge before it walks out](https://mavlon.co/post/how-to-capture-estimator-knowledge): the five places quoting knowledge actually lives (Excel formulas not values, rate corrections from memory, vendor relationships, spec interpretation conventions, judgment calls); why standard SOPs fail; the corpus-mining approach (pairs, costing identity, convention mining, validation, blind test); three kinds of knowledge (derivable, mineable, judgment); how long it takes and what the estimator contributes

### Custom machines, production lines and automotive tooling (the machine-builder segment)
- [Quoting production lines and automation projects](https://mavlon.co/production-line-quoting): for production-line builders, automation integrators and turnkey system suppliers who receive an OEM RFQ package (vehicle or product CAD, cycle-time target, plant layout) and must price a complete line before the engineering exists; from RFQ packet to structured cell estimate; the three deliverables; why quoting memory across past programmes is the asset
- [Quoting body-in-white and automotive tooling lines](https://mavlon.co/body-in-white-quoting): for tooling and body-shop line suppliers quoting Tier-1 and OEM programmes; how a body-in-white package is structured and where the cell-level scope hides
- [Feasibility and quoting for custom machine builders](https://mavlon.co/custom-machinery-feasibility): for special-purpose machine builders deciding whether a job is feasible before committing engineering hours to a quote
- [The Production Intelligence Brief](https://mavlon.co/production-intelligence-brief): five field briefs on Tier-1 automotive tooling and automation quoting: how a missed cell becomes a million-dollar quote mistake, the senior-engineer bottleneck, compressing the six-week feasibility cycle, routing RFQs across multiple plants, and how AI reads a 48x36 OEM tooling layout into a structured cell estimate

## First article inspection (second use of the same reading engine)

The FAI lane reads 2D engineering drawings (PDFs and scans) the way a senior quality engineer does: general note tolerances interpreted by dimension size (ISO 2768), fit classes (H7, g6) expanded to actual limits, flag notes mapped to features, GD&T frames captured with complete datum references. Output: a ballooned drawing and a pre-filled AS9102 Form 3 (or PPAP dimensional results, ISIR/EMPB) in 2 to 3 minutes, around 90 percent accuracy with the uncertain remainder flagged for human review. Cloud-based, nothing to install; exports AS9102 Rev C, Net-Inspect compatible data, and PPAP formats.

- [First Article Inspection Software](https://mavlon.co/first-article-inspection-software)
- [FAI Ballooning](https://mavlon.co/fai-ballooning-software): ballooning with interpretation
- [Tolerance Interpretation](https://mavlon.co/tolerance-interpretation): ISO 2768 by size, fit class expansion
- [FAI Software: 9 Tools Compared](https://mavlon.co/fai-software)
- [Ballooning Software: 9 Tools Compared](https://mavlon.co/ballooning-software)
- [Product demo video (3 min)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWRPuvIGDzQ): AI reads a drawing and fills AS9102 Form 3

## How Mavlon proves accuracy (the pilot protocol)

- [The Pilot Protocol](https://mavlon.co/pilot): the blind test Mavlon runs before any deal, published in full. Pass bar agreed in writing in advance: on ten held-out jobs the system has never seen, seven of ten totals within 15 percent of the filed quote, a package that fails to process counts as a miss, scoring is live so nobody tunes on the test set. Reading accuracy and pricing accuracy are scored separately; component accuracy (system handed each part's inputs) is explicitly rejected as a substitute. A structured refusal on a package that does not dimension the product is scored as CORRECT. Public scorecard: Cape Vincent 179pp = 214 cited statements + 7 document conflicts in 44 seconds; Hailey 668pp = 14 relevant sections found unaided in 102 seconds. Pricing column is published near-empty because public packages rarely have a known filed answer. Failure registry: 44 classes, 17 reading, 7 scope, 7 policy, 5 classification, 0 arithmetic.

## Public bid data (open datasets, CC BY 4.0)

- [Mavlon Public Bid Data catalog](https://mavlon.co/data): open datasets compiled from public construction procurement records; versioned, citable, machine-readable (CSV + JSON), plain-text README at https://mavlon.co/data/files/README.md
- [Florida Marine Construction Bid Prices](https://mavlon.co/data/florida-marine-construction-bid-prices): every bidder's unit price on floating docks, gangways, fixed platforms, boat ramps, steel sheet pile, bulkheads and fender systems from FDOT itemized bid tabulations 2020-2026; key fact: in FDOT letting E4Y47 (Broward County, July 10, 2026) six bidders priced 4,000 SF of aluminum floating dock between $110 and $300 per square foot and the gangway line between $75 and $300 per square foot
- [FDOT Bid Tabulations Index](https://mavlon.co/data/fdot-bid-tabulations-index): every itemized FDOT bid tabulation harvested (central office 2020-2025 + district lettings), with contract, letting date, county, description and a direct link to FDOT's PDF; FDOT's own aggregate reports carry no dock, gangway, bulkhead or fender items, only the itemized PDFs do
- Source code and mirrors: https://github.com/Mavlon-AI/florida-marine-bid-data and https://www.kaggle.com/datasets/mavlonai/florida-marine-construction-bid-prices

## Engineering tools (interactive, no signup)

- [All tools](https://mavlon.co/tools)
- [Dock Float Calculator](https://mavlon.co/tools/dock-float-calculator): floating-dock flotation, dead/live-load freeboard on the deck-top datum, float count that passes
- [ADA Gangway Slope Calculator](https://mavlon.co/tools/ada-gangway-slope-calculator): 1:12 rule, 80-ft and small-facility exceptions, length required per tide rise
- [ISO 2768 Tolerance Calculator](https://mavlon.co/tools/iso-2768-calculator)
- [ISO 286 Fit Calculator](https://mavlon.co/tools/iso-286-fit-calculator)
- [True Position Calculator with MMC bonus](https://mavlon.co/tools/true-position-calculator)
- [ISO H7 Tolerance Chart](https://mavlon.co/tools/iso-h7-tolerance-chart)
- [Surface Finish Converter](https://mavlon.co/tools/surface-finish-converter)
- [Hardness Converter](https://mavlon.co/tools/hardness-converter)
- [Thread Callout Decoder](https://mavlon.co/tools/thread-callout-decoder)
- [Metal Weight Calculator](https://mavlon.co/tools/metal-weight-calculator)
- [CNC Machining Cost Calculator](https://mavlon.co/tools/cnc-machining-cost-calculator)

## Reference

- [Manufacturing Intelligence Glossary](https://mavlon.co/glossary): GD&T, AS9102, PPAP, inspection terms
- [Blog](https://mavlon.co/blog): practitioner guides on quoting, bid packages, FAI, and drawing interpretation

## Company

- [About Mavlon](https://mavlon.co/about): founded 2024, Mavlon, Inc.; deployment: Montanstahl Group (3 plants, RFQ screening, engine graded 85%+ by their engineers)
- [Security](https://mavlon.co/security): data policy and architecture review for IT teams
- [Atishay Jain, founder](https://mavlon.co/author/atishay-jain): builds the product, writes every guide and tool on this site, runs every demo

## Contact

- Email: atishay@mavlon.co
- Demo: https://calendly.com/atishay-mavlon/ai-agent
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/mavlon-tech/
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCptvSna3fV1Xy88T2oJgJPQ