Repair-or-replace motor quotes, drafted from the incoming inspection sheet for your service manager to compare.

An incoming inspection sheet is a working document. It holds the nameplate, the customer's reason for sending the motor, as-found readings such as insulation resistance and no-load current, the failure noted at teardown, and the state of the shaft, bearings, rotor and core. Someone at the service desk turns that into parts and labor, finds out what a new motor would take, and writes it up so the customer can choose.

For the test, AI reads copies of those sheets and drafts both options: repair lines from your own parts and labor records, a replace option from the supplier quotes you send, each lead time as it was stated and by whom, and a short list of what a person must decide. It never picks an option, and it doesn't judge a reading.

The decision has a known order, and most of it isn't on the sheet. A 2003 article in the Department of Energy's Energy Matters, by a specialist at the Electrical Apparatus Service Association, walks a failed motor through a flowchart. Does it suit the application? What is the stator core's condition? Has there been a catastrophic failure, now or earlier? Is the rotor or another mechanical part badly damaged? Is money available for a new motor, and from whose budget? Is one available with an acceptable lead time? A teardown answers some of those, and the customer holds the rest. The draft shows which ones your sheet answered and lists the others for a person.

Scope comes in levels. The same newsletter sorts squirrel cage induction motor repairs into five. Level 1 is a basic overhaul with bearings and testing. Level 2 adds winding varnish treatment, worn bearing fit repair and shaft straightening. Level 3 adds a stator rewind, and Level 4 adds major lamination repair, a rotor rebar or a new shaft. Level 5 is for motors that would normally be replaced but for something like a missing spare, and it takes in misapplied motors and vintage pre-U-frame units. The article cautions that no simple ratio ties scope to cost. So the draft builds its lines from your sheet and never scales a repair against the price of a new motor.

Buyers write the sequence into the contract. Erie County, New York, has its shop tear the motor down and quote parts and labor, then tells it to proceed, return the motor disassembled or scrap it, and no repair starts without a purchase order number. Tulsa's Water and Sewer Department wants a cost estimate with the plant superintendent before repairs begin, doesn't hold its own review time against the shop, and expects delivery stated in days once the scope is known, so an open-ended word like promptly won't do. The Department of Energy's 1999 model repair form has the buyer tick an urgency, from rush with full overtime to routine, and choose between contact with price before work and go ahead, advise price. Those boxes change what a quote has to say, so the draft carries them.

Rates depend on the account and the machine. Tulsa's bid form prices rewinds and reconditioning as a discount off a published motor and pump repair price guide, with separate discounts for bearings and special insulation, an hourly rate for machine work, separate sections for open drip proof, totally enclosed fan cooled and wound rotor motors, and a markup for explosion-proof units. Erie County's contract is time and materials. The draft names the basis behind each line, and a part with no price in what you sent goes to your service manager unpriced.

A new motor isn't a like-for-like line. EASA's 1999 guide with the Department of Energy's Motor Challenge Program asks whether a replacement matches the old motor's torque, whether a centrifugal load needs a full-load speed no higher than the original, and whether couplings, mounts or adaptors are needed. It puts general-purpose motors under 100 hp in stock at many vendors and says special motors or those over 500 hp could take several weeks, but that is 1999 guidance, so the draft carries only what your supplier stated and when. Hazardous locations narrow the field: for Class I, Division 1, Group D motors, Erie County wants a UL-approved shop, a new UL nameplate and a UL Rebuilt Motor listing mark. And ANSI/EASA AR100, the trade's recommended repair practice, has a redesigned machine keep its original plate with a second one marked redesigned, so the sheet's nameplate may not be the one a replacement has to match. Your reviewer, usually the service manager, checks that no finding was softened, each lead time was really stated and every open item survived. None of this is legal or engineering advice.

Once your reviewer says yes against the success criteria, new inspection sheets get the same two-option draft for about 30 days.

A qualified person makes every repair decision and approves each quote before it posts anywhere or reaches a customer.

A fixed price, agreed before you sign, covers that month. Each later job is priced separately, and monthly support follows.