Wire harness quotes, drafted from the customer's drawing and RFQ.

An RFQ lands with a harness drawing, often a wire list and connector table, a few volume breaks and a due date. Before anyone can price it, someone reads each connector callout down to its terminals and seals, adds up wire by type, gauge and color, tallies the sleeving and labels, counts circuits and works out what the drawing never says.

In the proof of concept, AI reads copies of RFQ packages you already quoted and drafts a bill of materials and a question list in the layout your estimator uses. Each line names where on the drawing it was read. Anything missing stays blank and becomes a question. Labor and price come from your own past quotes and rates, or stay empty for your estimator.

The missing part number is the usual hold-up. The Wiring Harness Manufacturer's Association's Innovation Advisory Team released its 2026 industry survey on October 27. With 23 respondents it calls itself a snapshot, yet the pattern is plain: manufacturer part numbers led what RFQs leave out, then parts missing or unidentified, and far more people blamed customer information and waits on supplier prices than estimating itself. The team proposes a shared checklist of parts lists, approved components, customer requirements and document versions. The draft reports under those four headings, so a housing called out with no terminal, an unnamed mate or an "or equal" with no approved list comes back as a question.

One connector callout is many lines. Each used cavity takes a terminal chosen by wire gauge and plating. A sealed housing takes a wire seal sized to the insulation and a plug for each empty cavity, and IPC/WHMA-A-620 has given wire seals their own treatment since Revision C. Many housings add a terminal position assurance lock, a connector position assurance clip, a backshell or a strain relief. So the draft counts by cavity, never by connector, and it lists a splice or a double crimp as a line of its own for your estimator to look at.

A wire callout names a construction, not just a size. UL Solutions says it evaluates more than 7,000 appliance wiring material styles under UL 758, each defined by material, voltage, temperature, environmental exposure, flame and other ratings. Style 1015, for one, is a single conductor in PVC rated 600 Vac or 750 Vdc and up to 105 C, for internal wiring of appliances. Truck wire reads differently: SAE J1128, revised August 22, 2025, covers low voltage primary cable at a nominal 60 VDC (25 VAC) or less, and TXL carries a thinner wall than GXL or SXL. A thinner wall means a smaller outside diameter, which can change the seal and the terminal's insulation grip. The draft carries type with gauge and color, totals length for each combination and keeps a striped wire apart from a solid one.

The class moves the test line. IPC/WHMA-A-620 is at Revision F. The customer names the class on the drawing or PO, and published summaries say the maker may set one only where the customer documented none. One test equipment maker's summary of the Revision E table shows Class 1 with no dielectric withstand or insulation resistance test, Class 3 with both, and Class 2 going without them where clearances reach 2 mm on most assemblies. So the draft records the class and revision asked for, copies the test notes as written, and treats a bare "per IPC" note as a question. A form board, a test fixture and an applicator for a terminal family you don't own each get a line at your own rates, or stay blank.

Your reviewer. The owner picks whoever on staff knows harness quoting cold, most often the lead estimator. That person sets each draft beside the quote that went out and marks it: connector families, terminals and seals, circuit count, wire totals, the class read, test and tooling lines, and each question your team truly asked. Put in a harness with a half-finished connector table, a sealed one, a two-connector cable and one you lost on price.

After a yes, each new RFQ gets a draft bill of materials and question list for about 30 days.

Your estimator checks every line, chases every gap and sets the price, a person approves each item before it posts anywhere, and quotes leave from your own system as they do now. The same scoring runs through the month.