// AI for PVF distributors
AI for PVF distributors, tested on take-offs your inside sales team already priced.
For pipe, valve and fitting houses selling to industrial plants, mechanical contractors and energy customers. Pick one job: a long material take-off turned into a quote draft, or a material test report package assembled for an order. A free AI proof of concept runs it on copies of 20 to 30 your team already finished, with no login to your ERP or quoting system. Your reviewer, the person on your team who knows that desk best, decides whether it passed.
- First job
- Material take-offs and RFQ line lists into quote drafts
- Also open
- MTR packages assembled for an order
- You send
- Copies of 20 to 30 your desk finished, with the NDA signed first
- Logins
- None: no ERP, quoting system or customer portal
- Never
- A substitute accepted, or a report ruled on spec
- Price
- A range first, a fixed figure before you sign
// Jobs we would test
Four jobs between the take-off and the truck
Material take-off quotes
A long take-off or RFQ line list read for size, schedule, pressure class, end type, material grade and spec, then matched to your item numbers as a quote draft. Duplicates, ambiguous lines and specials are flagged for your inside salesperson.
See the take-off quotes pageMTR packages
Material test reports gathered for an order: each shipped line matched to its heat number and the mill's report, the grade and specification set beside the order, and any missing or mismatched report listed before the shipment leaves.
See the MTR packages pageApproved manufacturer checks
Every maker and valve figure on a quote compared with the owner's approved list for that project, with anything off the list set aside for a person to take up.
Valve tag and test records
A project's valve tag list matched to the figure numbers shipped and the test certificates on file, drafted as the turnover list the customer asked for.
// Why these two first
Your files already hold the answer to every line
Both jobs come with an answer key. Every take-off your desk priced sits beside the quote that went out, and every order that shipped with reports sits beside the package the customer got. A draft can be graded against that work line by line, so nobody has to invent what right looks like.
One flange line hides a table. ASME B16.5 covers pipe flanges in Classes 150 through 1500 up to NPS 24, with Class 2500 stopping at NPS 12. Past NPS 24 the buyer is in another standard, B16.47, for large-diameter steel flanges from NPS 26 through 60. A take-off that says only flange, 30 inch, has not named enough, and your inside salesperson has to notice that before pricing it.
The trade has tried to standardize its names before. Oil & Gas Journal reported in 1998 on Cimis, a project of PIDX, the petroleum industry's data exchange group, with the Construction Industry Action Group and the PVF Roundtable, to agree common identifiers and descriptions for commodity piping. Its data center opened in Houston in February 1997, with carbon and stainless pipe, oil country tubular goods, flanges and forged and butt-weld fittings first. PIDX, formed in 1987, now lists more than 4,000 product and service templates. Your customers' take-offs and your item file still describe the same tee differently.
One family of forgings, nine specifications. ASTM A961 sets common requirements for flanges, forged fittings and valves under nine product specifications. A105 covers carbon steel piping components, A350 forgings that need notch toughness testing, A694 high-pressure transmission service, and A182 alloy steel for high temperature. Which of those a line needs is a question for your team and the customer's engineer, so a grade the draft can't match is flagged and never swapped.
Federal codes split the same catalog. In the NAICS index, pipe fittings and valves outside plumbing fall under 423840, industrial supplies; metal pipe under 423510, with the metal service centers; and plumbers' fittings and valves under 423720. One PVF branch can sell across all three, so a plant's take-off, a contractor's release and an energy buyer's report request reach the same desk in different shapes.
Marks and paper have to agree. For gas pipelines, 49 CFR 192.63 says each valve, fitting, length of pipe and other component must be marked as prescribed in the specification or standard it was made to, which is one reason energy buyers want reports tied to what actually shipped. We mention that rule for context, not as legal or engineering advice. Nothing in the proof of concept touches your ERP or quoting system, a live quote or a shipment, and it never accepts a substitute material or decides that a report satisfies a specification. A person checks every quote and every package.
// How it runs
One desk at a time, on finished work
- Step 01
Name the reviewer and write the rules
The owner names the reviewer, often the senior inside salesperson or whoever signs off certs. Success criteria go in writing, you get a price range for the live job, and the NDA is signed before any document moves.
- Step 02
Run it on copies
Send 20 to 30 finished take-offs with the quotes that went out, or 20 to 30 shipped orders with their report packages. Inside Massmarket this is called the sandbox, a free AI proof of concept on your own documents. If files can't leave, we build look-alikes with your team.
- Step 03
About 30 days live, after a yes
The same job runs on new take-offs or orders for about 30 days. A person approves each quote before a customer sees it and each package before it goes with a shipment. The next job is decided and priced on its own, with monthly support after that.
Priced per job. You get a range before the proof of concept and a fixed price before you sign.
Rob sets the range on the call from your monthly take-off count, how many lines a long one runs to, and how many shipped orders need reports.
// Questions
What PVF distributors ask first
Will the AI accept a substitute when a line can't be matched?
Does it decide whether a material test report meets the spec?
Do you log in to our ERP or quoting system?
Our take-offs come from engineering firms in their own formats. Is that a problem?
We sell to energy customers and to plants. Can both be in the sample?
Rob Eason, founder
// Book a call with Rob
Bring the longest take-off you priced last quarter.
A 30-minute call with Rob. He will ask your company and role, which job you would test, and about how many take-offs or orders with reports your desk handles in a month. Hold every file until the NDA is signed.
- Co-owned a 60-employee financial services firm and sold his share to his partner.
- Ran GOSO Technologies, a Boston solar company rated 5/5 across 24 Google reviews.
- 5/5 across 83 reviews in HighLevel's Certified Admin Directory.
- 4.3/5 from 6 Google reviews of Massmarket AI.
- Every directory and Google review, critical ones included, is shown word for word at massmarket.ai/reviews.
- Takes every proof-of-concept call himself.