Cable schedule quotes, drafted row by row with the unclear callouts marked.

Someone on your desk reads each row of the schedule against the spec section behind it, works out what that callout means as a product you can sell, groups rows by construction, adds up footage and works out which cuts come off which reels. Whatever the schedule didn't say turns into a call to the contractor or a note on the quote.

In the test, AI reads copies of the same schedule and spec pages and drafts the quote lines: each construction as written, its total footage, the cut list by tag and the reels that would cover it. Where a callout is incomplete or more than one product could fit, the line is held with the reason and the candidates, for your quoter. Prices come from your own records or stay blank, and nothing goes to anyone.

A schedule is a count someone else made, and it often says so. The City of Winnipeg's published cable list for one plant upgrade gives each run a tag, a from and a to, conductors and gauge, type, shielding, a bond conductor, insulation voltage, conduit, drawing and length. Its notes then call the list a guideline that does not include every cable, say it centers on cables at or above 600 volts and those tagged on the drawings, and leave the length takeoff to the contractor. A trade guide to instrument cable schedules gives the same warning and builds each length from tray route, drops and termination allowance. So the draft totals the schedule's own figures, labels them as the schedule's, and lists the cable families the notes leave out.

A short callout leaves the construction to the reader. A 2013 IAEI Magazine piece on NEC Article 310, Conductors for General Wiring, walks through the letters: T for thermoplastic, X for thermoset, HH for a 90 degree rating, W for wet locations, N for a nylon covering. It also warns that the letters can mislead, since XHHW then carried a lower wet rating than its dry one. Agencies add lines of their own. One federal building specification wants No. 8 and larger stranded and No. 10 and smaller solid, except stranded at final connections to motors, transformers and vibrating equipment. LA World Airports' guide specification draws its solid line at 12 AWG and wants control circuits stranded. The draft keeps type, stranding and metal on every line and cites the paragraph each came from.

Tray ratings are separate claims, and one cable can carry several. The ER on Type TC-ER marks the power and control tray cable of NEC Article 336 as suitable for exposed runs under UL 1277, and TC-ER-JP adds joist-pull testing for wood framing. A 2010 IAEI answer says every listed Type PLTC is sunlight resistant whether marked or not, and that it isn't for wet locations unless marked so. A UL question column in the same magazine took up a cable rated both Type TC at 600 volts and NPLF at 150 volts, and held that each rating applies only to its own use. The draft records each marking the spec asks for and never treats one rating as covering another.

Shield and color code are whole product families. Winnipeg's legend separates OS, an overall shield, from ISOS, individually shielded pairs or triads with an overall shield, and it counts pairs and triads apart from conductors. Snohomish County PUD's 600-volt control cable specification colors No. 10 and smaller under ICEA S-73-532 Method 1 and puts white printing on black insulation under Method 3 at No. 8 and larger, while one maker's data sheet for a similar cable cites ICEA S-58-679 instead. The same specification names tinned stranded copper, FR-EPR or EPR insulation, and a chlorinated polyethylene or low-smoke zero-halogen jacket. A row reading 2 pair, 16, shielded stops well short of all that, so it goes on the held list with what's missing.

Cut lengths meet reel lengths, and reels have rules too. That Snohomish specification buys 500-foot or 1,000-foot reels depending on the construction, in one continuous length per reel, allowing a reel to run up to a tenth long and never short, with the purchase order number, maker, date of manufacture, conductors, insulation, voltage, jacket, length and weights on a weatherproof tag. Your desk solves the reverse problem: which runs can share a reel, where one long run forces a full reel, and what comes off stock. The draft lists every tag's cut and proposes a reel arrangement only where your past quotes show the pattern. Your reviewer will watch construction fields, footage totals, reel math and every line left as a question.

With your reviewer's yes against the success criteria, the same drafting runs on incoming cable schedules for about 30 days.

Each draft waits for your quoter to change, price or discard it, and only a person sends a quote. A person approves every item before it posts anywhere, and no reel is committed on a draft.

The live job has a fixed price agreed before you sign, with monthly support after it. Any further job is priced by itself.