Engineering change quotes, drafted from the print the tool was built on and the one that just arrived.

A customer's engineer moves a hole, opens a radius, adds a form or revises a trim line, then sends a new print level with a request for price and timing. Somebody has to find the print the tool was actually built on, work out every difference between the two, walk the die book to see which stations and details each difference reaches, and write it up so the toolmaker can judge it and the estimator can price it.

In the test, AI works through copies of changes you already quoted and drafts the change list and the change quote: each difference between the two prints, the stations or details it appears to touch, and lines for the work that tends to follow. Whether the change can be made, how it gets built, what it costs and whether you accept it stay with your toolmaker and estimator. Nothing reaches a customer.

The built-on print is not always the last one you quoted. A level may have been released mid-build, and the model in your shop carries edits the customer never saw. A 2013 Modern Machine Shop article on changes in die and mold work describes comparing a customer's changed geometry with two earlier versions, the shop's working one and the customer's original, so the shop's own edits survive. So every draft names the two revisions it compared and the record it took the baseline from. One stamping supplier's die standards show why that record matters: they want current engineering level X-Y-Z printouts and the N.C. and EDM wire programs delivered with the tool drawings.

A change needs a name before it needs a price. A 2005 U.S. patent on estimating die modifications, number 6,901,307, sorts each change by the feature involved and by what is happening to it: addition, deletion, expansion, reduction, shape change or transfer. Each difference in the draft carries one of those words. It then goes to your strip layout and die book and names the station that pierces that hole or trims that edge. Details can be called out by number where your die book has them, and one stamper's design standard has every steel stamped or etched with its detail number and material. The draft always says a station or detail appears to be touched, and your toolmaker confirms it.

Who started the change decides who carries it. That stamping supplier treats a builder's own departure from the approved design as a written request with no cost or timing impact accepted. A customer's revision is handled differently: its change control clause has the builder track each tool revision with timing, cost and cost breakdown, then pays for changes only after its own customer has paid, and only up to the quoted amount. So a line left off the quote can be work nobody pays for. The draft tags each line as the customer's change or your shop's request and quotes the clause it relied on, for your estimator to read.

The change doesn't end at the steel. A second supplier's die standards want the design updated after buy-off and after engineering changes, in STEP and native format, and a bill of material whose explosion drawing carries detail numbers. The stamper's standard wants the math data for replaceable details delivered before final payment and matching the current tool revision, and it holds the builder responsible for parts cut from wrong data. An automotive supplier's 2012 standard wants any tool design change after the full design review resubmitted promptly. So beyond the cut and any new details, the draft offers lines for the design update, the data sheet, spare details made to the old level, tryout, samples and the checking fixture. Your estimator keeps or strikes each one.

Your reviewer. The owner names the person who knows your changes best, often the lead toolmaker or the project manager who carries tools through the shop. They check whether the draft found every difference between the prints, named the stations your toolmaker really reworked, and offered the lines you ended up quoting. We cite these documents only to show what a draft must catch. Whether a clause binds you is for your attorney, and none of this is engineering advice.

With your reviewer's approval, new revisions get the same comparison and draft change quote for about 30 days.

Your toolmaker confirms what the change touches and how it gets made, your estimator prices it, and a person approves every quote before it reaches a customer. The scoring table stays in use through the month.