Multi-Line RFQ Support

Below you can see examples of how Steel Insights can use its proprietary software to prepare timely and accurate responses for multi-line Requests for quotations.

Utilizing software replaces the need to manually lookup steel price extras in multiple tables. It dramatically reduces the possibility of human errors and dramatically increases the speed of preparing a detailed response. Probably most important, it is far more cost effective than investing valuable human effort in such a mundane task. So it is more accurate, effective, efficient and timely to contact this work to Steel Insights.

The software recognizes and differentiates Imperial vs Metric units of measure; Minimum vs Nominal Thickness and can be instructed to display the price details in any units of measure: Pounds, HundredWeight (Cwt), Ton , Kilogram Kg), HundredKilogram (Ckg), MetricTonne (Tonne).

The software is table based. In this example we have used SI default tables that are not steel maker specific but are current published spot market base prices from multiple sources and a compilation of global price extras for grade, size, etc.

To support your business, we will prepare a confidential unique price program built around your tables. We can prepare tables unique to each potential supplying mill to allow you to compare cost (Purchase Prices) among sources on an item level allowing for improved purchasing efficiency.

There are three tabs in the file: Original RFQ, Spec Search Results, Price Sheet

Original RFQ – This is an example of a major part supplier’s RFQ. It has 1410 lines and has a typical array of products, grades, sizes, etc. The first step in pricing this RFQ is to put it through our Spec Search Tool that begins to fill in the input data for the Pricing Tool.

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Spec Search Results - Customers use many ways to describe steel products. Our ever expanding spec database allows us to efficiently determine product, steel grade, surface, coating type, etc. The “new” spec names (those not found during our initial search) will be investigated, defined and automatically added to our database for future reference. Once the Spec Search returns complete and accurate results the data is passed to the Price Sheet.

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Price Sheet – The price sheet searches the product description, looks up the variables on your proprietary tables and fills in the detailed price breakdown. There are separate tables behind the tool for Imperial and Metric values; Minimum and Nominal thickness; individual sheet products (HR, CR, HD, EG) thickness & width tables and coating weight tables for coated products. There are tables for base prices, grade extras, processing extras, coating type, etc.

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On the Price Sheet you will see some Yellow highlights. Item # 269-272 is the first example. The customers RFQ translates into Stainless Steel which beyond our current scope. Item # 964 translates into Cold roiled Strip which is also beyond our current scope. The second example is Item # 630 where the customer’s RFQ specifies Hot Roll product in a thickness of .80 mm (.0315”) which is not commercially available. In these examples the line items should be priced locally by the user. SI will not charge for identifying the items that need manual intervention.

The current last id non-supported sheet products include: Stainless steel, True strip, Tin Mill Products, Alloy steel and certain coated products.

Our tables can differentiate between Hot Dip products using hot roll or cold roll substrate. Most Automotive specifications have blurred this distinction.

SI makes the following assumptions when using Global Specs:

Hot roll is pickled
Global specs may not specify a specific product (HR, CR, hot Dip, EG)
- Where spec may be uncoated we assume CR vs HR split at 2.0 mm(.0787”)
- Where spec is coated and can be either HD or EG we assume HD

We are hoping that you will find value in utilizing our low cost custom software support to improve your efficiency and effectiveness.