The difference between a quote in three days and a quote in three weeks is usually the buyer’s package, not the supplier’s workload. Here is what we need to price with confidence.
When a quote takes three weeks, buyers assume the supplier is slow. In our experience the clock usually starts late for a different reason: the RFQ arrived incomplete, and the first two weeks were spent asking questions. A supplier who prices an ambiguous package without questions is not fast — they are guessing, and the guess will surface later as a claim or a surcharge.
A complete package for a fabricated or assembled product needs five things: current-revision drawings with tolerances, a bill of materials with manufacturer part numbers rather than descriptions, the annual quantity and expected batch size, the quality requirements including any testing or documentation, and the logistics terms — packaging, labelling, delivery point.
Quantity structure changes the price more than most buyers expect. "10,000 per year" can mean weekly batches of 200 or two drops of 5,000, and those are different products to manufacture. The first needs standing capacity and material on hand; the second can be planned around other work. Tell us the call-off pattern and the price gets sharper, usually in your favour.
On the BOM, manufacturer part numbers matter because equivalents are a decision, not a default. If we may substitute an equivalent terminal or connector, say so and we will quote the saving. If a component is customer-approved and fixed, mark it. Silence on this point forces the supplier to price the expensive assumption.
State your quality expectations in the RFQ, not in the first complaint. If you need 100% electrical testing, serialised labels or a dimensional report per batch, these belong in the quoted price. Adding them after nomination poisons the relationship on both sides, because someone has to absorb a cost nobody priced.
Finally, name a target price if you have one. Buyers sometimes withhold it as a negotiating tactic, but a credible target lets us tell you immediately whether the gap is 5% — worth engineering for — or 50%, in which case the specification, not the margin, is the problem. That honesty saves both sides a pointless quoting round.
— GANI Contract Manufacturing engineering team