Skip to main content
Quote Chaseby Superalignment Ask for a scope review

Outside-process quote chasing for job shops

Three of your approved suppliers, asked and chased, before your quote is due.

You price plating, heat treat, anodize and bar stock inside every customer quote, and you do five other jobs the same afternoon. When two of the three suppliers go quiet, you either guess the number or send the quote short. We send the RFQs to the suppliers you already approved, chase the ones who do not answer, and hand back one sheet.

Supplier comparison sheet

Cedar Ridge Machine invented example

Returned Wed 10:40 AM Chasing
Request
SRC-0142
Job
250 brackets, 17-4 PH
Customer quote due
Friday, 4:00 PM
Sheet returned
Wednesday, 10:40 AM
  1. Round 1 8 RFQs to 6 suppliers, Tue 9:12 AM
  2. Round 2 Email to the 3 still silent, Wed 8:02 AM
  3. Phone Ridgeline, still silent on both lines, Wed 9:30 AM

Line 1 Passivation, AMS 2700 Method 1, 250 pcs

Passivation prices returned by approved suppliers, invented example
Supplier Price Lead time Minimum Replied
Kestrel Metal Finishing $1.15 / pc $287.50 lot 4 business days $250 per lot Tue 3:41 PM
Their words“Price holds 30 days. Add one day if the parts land after 2 PM.”
Halverson Passivating $0.92 / pc $230.00 lot 6 business days $300 per lot Wed 8:15 AM
Their words“That lot is under our minimum, so it bills at $300 either way.”
Ridgeline Surface Co No reply Not quoted Not quoted 2 emails, 1 call

Line 2 Black oxide, MIL-DTL-13924 Class 1, 250 pcs

Black oxide prices returned by approved suppliers, invented example
Supplier Price Lead time Minimum Replied
Foundry Row Coatings $0.88 / pc $220.00 lot 3 business days None stated Tue 2:05 PM
Their words“Two days is possible for a $95 flat expedite charge.”
Halverson Passivating $0.74 / pc $185.00 lot 5 business days $200 per lot Tue 4:20 PM
Their words“We have not racked this part before, so the price may move after the first article.”
Ridgeline Surface Co No reply Not quoted Not quoted 2 emails, 1 call

Line 3 17-4 PH bar, 1.25 in round, condition A, 40 ft

Bar is bought annealed. Heat treat to H900 is handled elsewhere on this job, after machining and before the finishing lines above.

Bar stock prices returned by approved suppliers, invented example
Supplier Price Lead time Minimum Replied
Delta Bar & Plate $18.40 / ft $736.00 total In stock, ships next day 20 ft Tue 11:50 AM
Their words“Mill test reports come with it. Price is good for 7 days.”
Wolcott Metals $17.95 / ft $718.00 total 9 business days 40 ft Wed 9:05 AM
Their words“This is mill delivery, not stock. I cannot confirm the 9 days until the mill releases it.”

Five things for you to decide

  • Ridgeline Surface Co answered nothing on either line. Emailed Tue 9:12 AM and Wed 8:02 AM, called Wed 9:30 AM, voicemail left.
  • The first email to Ridgeline bounced once. The address on your list may be stale.
  • Halverson is the cheaper passivation price per piece and the more expensive one per lot at this quantity, because of the $300 minimum.
  • Halverson's black oxide lot comes to $185.00 against its own $200 minimum, so that line bills at $200. Still under Foundry Row's $220.
  • Wolcott called its own 9 days unconfirmed. That is their sentence, not our estimate.
Read the exact RFQ text your suppliers received 
Subject: RFQ · Passivation · 250 pcs 17-4 PH brackets · need a price by Wed 9:00 AM

Hi Dana,

Cedar Ridge Machine is quoting a job this week and we would like a price from you.

Operation:      Passivation per AMS 2700, Method 1
Material:       17-4 PH stainless, condition H900
Quantity:       250 pieces, one time
Part size:      4.2 x 1.8 x 0.5 in, about 0.4 lb each
Drawing:        CRM-4471 rev C attached, pages 1 and 2 only
Certification:  Certificate of conformance with the shipment
Parts needed:   Back to us by Thursday 24 September
Ship to:        Cedar Ridge Machine, 1480 Foundry Street, Erie, PA 16510

Please send price per piece and per lot, lead time in business days, your lot
minimum, and anything about this part that changes the price. If you cannot
quote by Wednesday 9:00 AM, one line telling us so is more useful than silence.

Thanks,
Ray Okonjo, Cedar Ridge Machine
(814) 555-0142 · [email protected]

Invented shop, invented suppliers, invented prices. Nothing on this sheet came from a real quote.

The Thursday this is for

The number you guessed is the one that eats the job.

Shop owners describing how they speed up quoting talk about sending RFQs for material and for secondaries such as plating, anodize and heat treat, then calling the ones who did not come back. The chase is described as an ordinary part of pricing a job, not an unusual week.

In a separate quoting thread, a machinist says he could not get competitive prices for electroless nickel and ended up with one quote from one large local shop, which he suspected was priced wrong for the work. That is the failure this offer points at. Not a missing tool. A missing second and third price.

Both observations come from public Practical Machinist threads, methods to expedite quoting and asking for quoting advice, read on 2026-09-07 through a search engine summary, because a direct fetch returned HTTP 403. Exact wording, usernames and post dates are unverified, and forum posters are not a sample of the median shop. They show the shape of the problem, not how often it happens.

What you get, and when

One sheet, back before the deadline you gave us.

  1. 01

    Every price, quoted verbatim

    One page per job. Each approved supplier named, with price, lead time, minimum and any condition in the supplier's own sentence. We do not summarize a quote into something cleaner than it was.

  2. 02

    Every silence, named

    The suppliers who did not answer, listed by name, with the times and channels they were chased on. An empty cell is reported as empty. We never fill a gap with an estimate.

  3. 03

    The RFQ text we sent

    The exact wording that went out, so you can see what your suppliers saw and correct it before the next request.

  4. 04

    A short flag list

    Stale contacts, minimums that do not fit the quantity, and anything a supplier said that needs a person at your shop to decide. Marked ambiguous rather than resolved for you.

Delivered to the one person at your shop you name, inside one business day of a complete request. If your customer deadline cannot be reached with two chase rounds, we say so before we start instead of delivering late. We take up to five requests a week from one shop. Past that we say no rather than let the turnaround slip.

How it works

Your list, your wording, your address.

What you send, once

  • Your approved supplier list for these operations, with contact names and email addresses.
  • A one-page authorization naming who may be contacted, and stating that we do not negotiate, commit or issue purchase orders.
  • Your standard RFQ wording, or a one-time approval of a plain template before anything goes out.
  • An email alias or forward at your domain, so every reply lands where you can read it.
  • Drawings and specifications in whatever form you already send them.

Setup is a phone call and one email. Per request after that: the job details and the customer deadline.

What we do

  • Match each line to suppliers on your list, four at most per line, and flag any stale contact before sending.
  • Draft one RFQ per line in your approved wording, with the drawing pages you cleared for that supplier.
  • Send from your alias and log every send with a timestamp.
  • Chase round one by email the next business morning, round two by phone that afternoon.
  • Transcribe every reply word for word, including minimums, expedite terms and exclusions.

Agents inside the workspace draft the messages and hold the chase log. They do not send anything on their own.

The human checkpoint

Kevin Pantasdo at Superalignment reads every outbound message before it leaves and checks every returned sheet line by line against the raw emails. Anything a supplier says that is not a plain price goes to you rather than into the sheet as an interpretation.

If a supplier asks who we are, the answer is in writing, copied to you: an outside assistant working for your shop. If a supplier asks not to be contacted by us, we stop that day and tell you the same day.

Kevin is also the person you call when something is wrong.

Three honest finishes

Not every request comes back with three prices.

Here is what each ending looks like on the sheet, and what it costs you. Invented examples.

Complete requestSheet delivered

What happened

Three of four approved platers answered inside two chase rounds. All three prices, lead times and minimums are on the sheet.

What you do

Pick a number for the customer quote and know which supplier it came from.

What it costs

$150 per sourcing request.

Thin requestSheet delivered, gaps named

What happened

One usable price. The other two suppliers were emailed twice and called once, and the sheet says exactly that with the times.

What you do

Call the vendor yourself with the deadline still ahead of you, or quote on the one price you have.

What it costs

This request is billed. If it happens twice in a row, we pause billing, tell you the reply rate is not worth the price, and either fix the approach or stop.

Out of scopeReturned unrun

What happened

The request needs a call we are not qualified to make: which alloy, which class, which thickness, or which vendor is right for the part.

What you do

Make the technical call, then send it back. The same happens if a drawing turns out to be under a customer NDA or ITAR control and the supplier is not already cleared.

What it costs

Nothing. A request we hand back unrun is not billed.

Fit

Who this is for, and who it is not for.

A fit if

  • You run a US contract machine shop, sheet metal fabricator or commercial printer with 10 to 100 people.
  • One person prices outside processes inside customer quotes, and that person also does five other jobs.
  • You already have approved suppliers for these operations and you want to keep them.
  • Your quotes have deadlines you can name to the hour.
  • You can sign a one-page authorization and set up an email alias this week.

Not a fit if

  • You want new suppliers found or vetted. In this offer we contact only the list you give us.
  • You want someone to push a price down. We do not negotiate.
  • You buy these operations on standing price sheets or annual agreements. There is nothing to chase.
  • The drawings are ITAR-controlled or under a customer NDA and the supplier is not already cleared.
  • You need someone chasing at night or on weekends.
  • You want the spec chosen for you: the alloy, the class, the plating thickness, or which vendor to use.

The fair questions

Answered with scope, not with claims.

Our ERP already does purchasing and RFQ tracking.
It does hold the purchasing side. MIE Trak Pro's own job shop page lists a purchasing module, vendor party management and RFQ tracking, with no price shown (vendor page, observed 2026-09-07). What none of it does is notice on Thursday afternoon that the heat treater has not answered since Tuesday and pick up the phone. We are not replacing your record system. We work from your approved list, send your wording, and hand results back in whatever form you file them, including straight into that ERP if you want it there.
Why would I let a stranger email my plater?
You do not have to trust us before you can see the boundary. Every supplier we contact is one you named. The RFQ text is one you approved before anything went out. Every message is sent from an address you control and can read. We do not negotiate, we do not commit, we do not issue purchase orders, and any supplier who asks who we are is told in writing that we are an outside assistant working for you. One named person here reviews every message and every sheet, and that person is who you call when something is off.
Why $150?
$150 per sourcing request buys one job's worth of chasing: up to three operations or material lines, up to four of your approved suppliers per line, two rounds of follow-up, and a comparison sheet inside one business day. Price it against the hour you or your estimator spend on it, and against what one wrong plating number costs on a job you win. Software sits below that: AuraVMS publishes RFQ software at $4.99 and $7.99 per user per month billed annually (pricing page, observed 2026-09-07), which prices the tool and not the person who chases. Staffed assistant firms sit above it and put pricing behind a call (Wing pricing page, observed 2026-09-07). We publish the number instead of quoting per situation, because the work is the same size every time. No shop has been asked this price yet.
What do you need from us?
Five things, once: your approved supplier list with contact names, a one-page authorization, your standard RFQ wording or approval of a plain template, an email alias or forward so replies land where you can see them, and the drawings or specs you already send. After that, per request, the job details and the customer deadline. Setup is a phone call and one email, not a project.
Who talks to our customers?
Nobody here. This offer points at your suppliers only. We never contact the customer whose quote is due, and we never tell a supplier who the end customer is unless you put that in the RFQ yourself.
What if it goes wrong?
The concrete failure is a supplier who does not reply, and we report that by name with the dates and channels we tried rather than filling the gap with a guess. If a request comes back with fewer than two usable prices, we say so plainly, and we do not bill the next request until we have fixed the approach or agreed to stop. If a supplier ever asks not to be contacted by us, we stop that day and tell you the same day. Anything a supplier says that is not a plain price goes to you, not into the sheet as our interpretation.
Why not a virtual assistant, or the marketplace we already used?
A general assistant is a monthly relationship priced through a consultation, and it starts by learning what a heat treat spec is. A marketplace such as Xometry is a real option, but it quotes the whole part through its own network of suppliers (purchasing page, observed 2026-09-07), which is a different decision than pricing one operation with the plater you already qualified. This is one bounded request against your own approved list, at a published price, with nobody new introduced into your supply chain.

Take this whether or not you ever hire us

The RFQ wording that gets an answer.

Most silence is not rudeness. It is an RFQ that cannot be priced without a reply asking for something, so it goes to the bottom of the pile. This is the shape we use, and the fields we fill in before sending.

Outside-process RFQ template

Subject: RFQ · [operation] · [qty] pcs [part name] · need a price by [day, time]

Hi [contact first name],

[Shop name] is quoting a job and we would like a price from you.

Operation:      [operation, spec and revision, class or method]
Material:       [alloy and condition]
Quantity:       [qty], [one time or repeat, and expected annual usage]
Part size:      [L x W x H, weight each]
Drawing:        [file name and revision, which pages are attached]
Certification:  [cert of conformance, mill test report, none]
Parts needed:   [date you need them back]
Ship to:        [address, and who pays freight]

Please send price per piece and per lot, lead time in business days, your lot
minimum, and anything about this part that changes the price. If you cannot
quote by [day, time], one line telling us so is more useful than silence.

Thanks,
[Your name], [shop name]
[phone] · [email]

Nine fields a supplier has to ask back for when they are missing

  1. Spec and revision. AMS 2700 Method 1 and AMS 2700 Method 2 are not the same price.
  2. Alloy and condition. A finisher prices 17-4 H900 differently from 304.
  3. Quantity, and whether it repeats. A one-time lot and a monthly release get different numbers.
  4. Part size and weight. This sets rack count, basket count and handling.
  5. Racking or masking notes. Threads, bores and faces that must stay clear.
  6. Certification. Certificate of conformance, mill test report, or nothing.
  7. Date you need parts back. Not "as soon as possible", an actual date.
  8. Ship to and freight. Who arranges it and who pays.
  9. Your deadline for their reply. A named hour is answerable. An open request is not.

This list is ours, built from what a finisher or a mill needs before it can price a lot. It is not a survey of suppliers, and we have not measured what it does to reply rates.

Two files, no form

Take the wording and the sheet format.

The RFQ template is blank and ready to send from your own address. The comparison sheet is the invented example from the top of this page, as rows you can open in a spreadsheet.

MD Outside-process RFQ template

The RFQ wording, the nine fields suppliers ask back for when they are missing, and the two-round chase schedule. Blank template, no invented data.

Download CSV Example comparison sheet

The invented Cedar Ridge Machine sheet as rows: three lines, eight supplier entries, two non-responder rows and five flags.

Download

The workspace behind this

Praxis is where the request is run.

Praxis is a workspace that holds people, AI agents and business apps in one operating context. For a sourcing request, that means your approved supplier list, the RFQ drafts, the send log, the chase log and the comparison sheet sit together as one job rather than in a mailbox, a spreadsheet and someone's memory. The agents draft and track. They do not decide and they do not send.

Kevin Pantasdo reviews every message before it goes out and every sheet before it comes back, and he is the person you escalate to. You never have to open Praxis, learn it, or buy it to get the sheet. It is where we work, not something you are being sold here.

One next step

Send us the job you are quoting this week.

What job are you quoting, and which outside processes are you waiting on?

Tell us the operations you are waiting on, the suppliers you would want contacted, and when the customer quote is due. We reply with what we would send, what we would not touch, and whether the deadline is reachable with two chase rounds. If it is not, we say so instead of taking the request.

$150 per sourcing request

Ask for a scope review

The form asks for your company, work email, team size and one description of the work. A person reads it and replies. It activates nothing, signs nothing and sends nothing to any supplier.