Panel quotes drafted from the spec and the drawings, with every gap listed for your estimator.

A panel RFQ is rarely one document. There is a specification section or plant standard, a single-line for the feeders and motor loads, schematics with device tags, and sometimes an I/O list and a load schedule. Your estimator reads them against each other, builds the bill of materials, works out the enclosure and writes down what the customer forgot to say before anyone prices a wire.

In the test, AI reads copies of packages you already quoted and drafts the worksheet your estimator would have built: each part with the sheet or clause it came from, the enclosure Type, supply and control voltages, the rating asked for, spares, documents owed and a numbered list of gaps. Prices and labor come only from your price lists and past jobs, and a line it can't support stays blank. Your reviewer compares it, line by line, with the quote that went out.

The marking list is the first checklist. NEC Article 409, at 409.110, has a panel marked, plainly visible after installation, with the maker's name, the supply voltage, phases, frequency and full-load current for each incoming circuit, the short circuit current rating, a wiring diagram or its number, and an enclosure type number. Panels holding only control circuit components skip the short circuit marking. A package silent on any of those is a question before it is a quote, so the draft works down that list for every panel. Editions differ, so check the one your inspector enforces; none of this is legal or engineering advice.

A spec can sound like a rating without being one. New York's master specification, in Section 40 67 00 for a duplex wastewater lift station, asks for motor circuit protectors with a minimum interrupting capacity of 22,000 amperes at 240 volts. That is a breaker's rating, and it leaves the finished panel's rating unstated. The same template still asks for a UL 508 label on the complete assembly, where UL's shop program certifies panels to UL 508A, and its opening note warns it has not been technically edited. NEC fine print has pointed to UL 508A's Supplement SB as an example of an approved method, and that supplement's Table SB4.1 sets an assumed rating for unmarked parts. The low end is easy to reach: one component maker's white paper cites 5 kA for a contactor up to 50 horsepower or an overload relay, and 10 kA for a terminal block. So the draft writes down what the customer asked for, in the customer's words, lists the fault current or rating the package doesn't give, and leaves the calculation to your engineer.

The enclosure follows the room. Eastern Municipal Water District's Section 16950, Custom Control Panels, in California, wants NEMA 12 indoors, NEMA 4X outdoors and in wet or corrosive indoor areas, NEMA 7 in hazardous areas, and a gasketed NEMA 1 where a dry indoor panel has to be ventilated for cooling. A float in a wet well can change the whole quote: UL's component rules keep intrinsically safe barriers out of an ordinary locations panel, and the district calls for UL 698A labels where those barriers go in. The draft records a Type for each location the package names and flags any it can't find.

Spares, wire colors and the factory test vary by buyer, and each one is priced work. The district wants five fuses of each type and size on single-phase and control circuits, three on three-phase, and two complete contact sets and two coils for each contactor size. New York's template starts from four fuses of each type and size, four pilot bulbs, one 24 volt supply of each size used and a set share of spare terminal blocks. The district makes 480 volt phases brown, orange and yellow and PLC inputs blue; New York's makes DC control circuits blue and outside interlocks yellow. The district also has the control system simulated at least four times at the factory, gives every I/O point a signed checklist line, and takes three weeks' notice before a witnessed test. The draft lists each as a priced line or a question, so none of it goes out as free.

Your reviewer. The owner names the person who knows your quoting best, usually the lead estimator or a senior panel engineer. They check each draft against the quote that went out: device counts against the schematics, each panel's enclosure Type, supply and control voltages, the rating as asked, spares, documents owed, and whether the gap list caught what your estimator had to ask. Include a spec that cites UL 508, a job you declined, and a classified location panel if you quote them.

After a yes, new RFQs get a draft worksheet and gap list for about 30 days.

Your estimator edits it, prices it and decides what goes to the customer, and an engineer checks every quote before it leaves. The draft never opens your ERP or writes to your drawing system.