AI agents for manufacturers: RFQs, suppliers and quality records

The work between the machines

A shop making machined parts, packaging or fabricated assemblies has people who understand the process deeply and spend too much time elsewhere. Estimators open an RFQ email, open the drawings, check the material, look up supplier prices and re-key everything into a quote. Buyers chase suppliers for confirmations. Quality staff write up non-conformances from photos and notes.

Most of this involves reading text, tables and forms, and matching them to records. It is a good fit for agents, as long as geometry and process decisions stay with engineers.

RFQ to shipment: four agent jobs

Quote prep is usually the best first project. Quote turnaround is easy to measure, and a faster, tidier quote often decides who wins an order.

Working with the ERP you have

ERPs in the sector range from large suites such as SAP and Microsoft Dynamics, to mid-market tools such as NetSuite or Odoo, to home-grown databases and spreadsheets. We check what can be read safely. A read-only connection to item masters, open orders and supplier records gets you a long way. Writing back to the ERP is added once the read-only agent has proven reliable, and always through the system's own interface, never by changing database tables directly.

Data quality is the usual obstacle: duplicate part numbers, free-text materials, drawings revisions that do not match. We start with a data audit on a sample and tell you what needs cleaning before an agent can rely on it. This is often the most valuable output of the first month.

For document-heavy work see AI document processing. For companies thinking about the wider programme, AI consulting covers readiness and priorities.

Confidentiality, safety and standards

• Drawings and IP: customer drawings are often under NDA and export controls. The agent works in your cloud or on-premise environment where required, and sends no drawings to a model provider unless your contract allows it.
• Quality standards: if you hold ISO 9001, IATF 16949 or similar certification, records are controlled documents. The agent produces drafts into your controlled process and does not approve or release them.
• Safety: agents never control machines or safety systems. We build office-side software only.
• Supplier and customer data: commercial terms are confidential. Access is scoped, and all agent actions are logged for audit.
• Regulated products: medical, aerospace and food contact parts carry extra traceability rules. Check with your quality manager and certifying body before adding any new tool to the record chain.

Phases and price

A common path runs in three steps: a data audit and quote-prep agent first, supplier follow-up second, quality drafting third. Each phase gets its own measured result before the next starts, so you can stop at any point having paid only for what worked.

Projects start at $1,500 and our rate is $30 an hour. A quote-prep agent on top of a clean item master is a smaller project; ERP write-back and several plants raise the effort. You get a fixed quote within one working day of a short call. See AI agent development for our method and what an AI agent costs for the market view.