Die build quotes, drafted from the print and the customer's standard for your estimator to price.

A buyer emails a part print, a request for quote and a pointer to its die standard, often a long PDF nobody at your shop wrote. Before an estimator can think about stations or steel, somebody has to find the material and thickness, the annual volume, the kind of tool asked for, what the standard demands, where the tool has to run off and which spares have to ship with it.

In the test, AI goes back through copies of packages you already quoted and drafts the requirement side of your quote, each line with the page or clause it came from. Hours, steel and the price stay empty. Where the package is silent or two documents disagree, the line moves to a list for your estimator or lead toolmaker, and nothing goes to a buyer.

The buyer's standard decides what the quote must contain. One stamping supplier's published die build standards refuse to consider any quotation sent without its own tool cost breakdown sheets, and they want freight quoted delivered and tryout time and equipment included. An automotive supplier's 2012 global die standards ask a bidder to state, with the initial quote, the approximate die size including shut height, the estimated blank pitch and width, the estimated tonnage, the station line-up with inactive stations, and the press the die is quoted to run in. If a die can't reach the stated strokes per minute, that document wants the reason in writing inside the quote, along with the speed it can reach. The draft makes a line of each and leaves the numbers to your people.

Material and thickness trigger clauses. A second supplier's die standards require steel plate construction, no castings, for parts 1.5 mm thick or more, and headed punches once stock runs past 3 mm or into high-strength grades. The first supplier asks for in-die lubrication on any die running more than 25 strokes a minute and caps a piece of scrap at four inches square. A stamper's design standard says its blank drawings are for reference only unless noted, so blank development falls to the builder. The draft reads the thickness and the steel off the print, then names the clauses in that customer's standard those values set off.

Tryout and run-off read differently every time. The second supplier runs progressive and blanking dies off a coil feeder, never strip fed, runs a transfer die with all its sets under one ram, and expects buy-off samples to ship with the die, their cost inside the die price. The 2012 standard wants a run at the defined speed in the builder's press, then 90 continuous minutes at the buyer's stamping plant. The first supplier asks for a six-piece full layout and a 30-piece capability study at a Cpk of 1.67, and leaves the builder paying its own way to acceptance runs. Each term gets a line showing where the run happens and who carries it, so your estimator sees it before the tool has a number.

Spares are asked for in different units. The first supplier wants two spares of every size punch and button, with spare punches, die sections and forms fitted after 500 sample pieces on the originals and before the die is approved. The second wants one set of standard punches, buttons and trim steels quoted at sourcing, one set of extrusion sections where a die has them, and any other critical spares quoted on request at final design review, each marked on the bill of material. The draft lists what the customer asked for in the customer's own terms and flags a standard that says nothing.

What stays with a person. The stamper's standard says it may not apply to prototype or low-volume single-hit tooling, so which document governs is the first question. A class letter or number is copied as stated, with where it appeared, and never translated into another customer's scale. Payment terms can tie you to your customer's customer: the first supplier pays 45 days after it is paid and wants a bailee bond signed. Those go to your owner. Die type where none is stated, stations, construction and every hour belong to your estimator and lead toolmaker. Your reviewer, the estimator who knows this work best, checks each draft against the quote you sent. We cite these documents to show what a draft must catch; none of this is engineering or legal advice.

After a yes, new tool RFQs get the same requirement draft and decision list for about 30 days.

Your estimator fills every hour and price, your toolmaker makes every build call, and a person approves each quote before it reaches a buyer. The scoring table keeps running through the month, so the live work is judged the way the test was.