Quoting engine
The engine measures the part, recognises the features that cost machine time, tries it on every machine in your shop and prices the minutes at your rates. Below is every decision it takes on the way.
Example data
01Quoting route
Every part takes the same route, in the same order. Nothing on it is guessed: every figure is either measured on the solid or taken from your price list.
A 3D model or a drawing. An assembly is split into parts, and identical parts are costed once.
Size, volume and mass, holes with their depth, threads, pockets, corners, walls.
Every machine in your shop the part fits on, each one costed in full.
Minutes operation by operation and a blank from the stock catalogue, at your rates.
Can the price go out without a person? Every reason to stop carries a measurement.
Price at onceTo the engineerApproves or corrects the price. A correction goes back into calibration.
The customer sees the net price per piece and can order.
The route is deterministic: the same file and the same price list always give the same amount, and every line of that amount has a source.
02Reading the solid
Features make the price, not the size. Scroll to see what the engine takes out of one bracket - the measurements an engineer makes with a caliper and an eye, all of them.
01 · Solid
The engine looks for the smallest box the part fits in - turned against the model's axes if need be, because that is how a part is clamped. Volume and mass go to the material; the surface area, split into planar, cylindrical and freeform faces, goes to the finishing time.
02 · Holes
A hole is a cylinder closed around its axis, with a depth and a note of whether it goes through. A chamfer or a countersink belongs to the hole it machines, and a wide, shallow recess is a pocket to be milled, not a drilling job.
03 · Threads
A thread is usually not in the solid: the model carries a plain hole at the tap drill's diameter. The engine recognises those diameters and proposes a thread, and the customer confirms it in the widget, where the 3D preview highlights the holes in question.
04 · Pockets
A pocket has a depth, a floor and a corner radius; the engine also reads windows and undercuts. The tightest corner a cutter has to reach into - not a drilled hole, not a fillet at the foot of a wall - decides whether the part can be made with the tools at hand at all, and how large a cutter is worth clearing it with.
05 · Directions
Hole axes and pocket openings set the machining directions, and those set the number of setups - one count on three axes, another on five. A skewed direction means a fixture or multi-axis work. The thinnest wall and the part's slenderness go to the gate.
06 · Turning
When the part's faces share one axis, the engine recognises a turned part, measures the turning diameter and length, and takes a bar from the catalogue instead of a plate. Such a part can go to a lathe, a mill-turn centre or a sliding-head automatic - whichever your shop has.
The bracket, the shaft and every figure on the drawings are example data.
03Choosing the machine
The engine does not pick a machine in advance. It costs the part on every machine in your shop it fits on and compares the price per piece with the setup spread over the batch. Switch the quantity and watch the winner change.
One piece. Five axes win: one setup instead of five, and the whole setup falls on that single piece.
Example data: rates and prices made up for this comparison.
The part's size against the work envelope, in any orientation on the table. A part that is too big is not costed on that machine.
The tightest corner against the machine's smallest cutter or its tool library. A corner too tight rules the machine out.
A weaker spindle or a lower top speed lengthens the time where it really does. A stronger one never lowers the price.
A blank heavier than the table takes rules the machine out. Too few tool stations sends the quote to an engineer.
04Time and material
A cycle is made of operations you can check on the control. Each of the customer's choices touches a different part of it - switch them on one by one.
Example data for the bracket from the reading above.
You pay for the metal you buy, not the metal left in the part. The engine adds a machining allowance and takes the nearest size from the stock catalogue that you can actually buy.
The engine costs both for the whole order line and takes the cheaper, so the answer can change with the quantity. A turned part gets a bar from the catalogue of diameters.
05Price per piece
The price per piece is the cost of the piece plus the batch costs divided by the quantity. That is where the widget's price table for 1, 5, 10, 25 and 100 pieces comes from - worked out live on the same model.
06Gates
Once the price is worked out, the gate checks whether it can go out without a person. If not, the quote waits for an engineer with a reason and a number, not a vague warning.
Every reason carries a code and a measurement: not "part too big" but "the machine's Y travel is 310 mm, the part needs 350 mm". You know what to fix - in the part or in the machine's data.
07Trust
A price nobody can explain is a price nobody approves. So the engine is built so that every amount can be taken apart.
The same file and the same price list give the same amount today and in a year. There is no generative model and no randomness on the quoting route.
Calibration fits the cost rate and the setup time to the prices you approve. Minutes stay minutes, and the correction is an amount.
Every amount has a breakdown: material, machining with its time split, setup, programming, inspection, operations, margin and delivery.
The coefficients, thresholds and formulas the engine prices with - they are our work and our edge. Your own rates, operation times and quality multipliers you see and change in your price list, and every amount is broken into lines in the panel.
08Questions
3D models in STEP (.step, .stp) and IGES (.iges, .igs), and drawings: PDF, DXF and photos or scans (JPG, PNG, TIFF, WEBP), up to 50 MB. A 3D model gives a full measurement of the solid. From a drawing the engine reads dimensions, material, threads, tolerances and roughness, and can rebuild a flat part as a solid - but such a quote always waits for an engineer.
As accurate as the price list it works with. The engine measures the part itself and prices it at your rates, and calibration on the prices you approve fits it to the way you actually quote. Where confidence is low, the gate holds the price for an engineer instead of guessing.
It does not guess. It costs the part on every machine in your shop it fits on and takes the cheapest, with the setup spread over the batch - or, if you set it so, sends round parts to the lathes. An engineer can also pin a quote to a specific machine in the panel.
There is no generative model on the quoting route: the price follows from the geometry and your price list, the same way every time. Machine learning helps in one place - reading characters off drawings and scans - and runs on our own servers. Your files do not go to any outside AI provider.
It replaces the repetitive work, not the judgement. The automatic price handles the typical quotes and the engineer deals with what really needs a decision: the gate hands over the unusual parts, and you set yourself what may go out without approval.
You pick the machines from the catalogue and the materials from the library, so setting your rates usually takes a few hours. Then comes calibration on 8-12 parts you have already quoted - that is what decides whether the first automatic prices are acceptable.
Because they are our work. We show every decision the engine takes and every quantity it measures. The rates, operation times and quality multipliers your price is worked out with, you see and change in your price list, and every amount has a breakdown in the panel.
Create an account, add your machines from the catalogue and upload a part you quoted recently. You can compare the engine's breakdown with your own spreadsheet line by line.