Buyer checklist
How to write an automation RFQ
An automation RFQ is a request for a price and an approach. It is not a place to discover, for the first time, which process you are trying to improve.
Canadian plants often send a robot model, a photo, and a hope that three integrators will return comparable numbers. They will not. This checklist is the work that makes the numbers comparable.
Innovation Peer does not write the integrator’s proposal and does not install the cell. Advisors help you get the project clear enough that an RFQ is worth sending.
Price the process, not a brand
Name the station, the outcome, and the constraint. “Palletize cases from line 2” is a project. “We want a cobot” is a catalogue search. Suppliers can propose the machine once the process is bounded.
Say what success is in plant language: fewer lifts per shift, spindle time recovered, a route that no longer needs a forklift in a pedestrian aisle. Leave the brand open unless you already own a control standard you will not change.
Put these items in the RFQ
You can attach photos and a rough sketch. The list below is what lets two proposals talk about the same job. If an item is unknown, write “unknown” instead of leaving it out — that is still useful.
- Process boundary: where the automated work starts and stops
- Part, case, or load: sizes, weights, and the families that must run
- Rate: average and peak, and the shift pattern
- How material is presented today, and what must not change
- Interfaces: conveyors, machine doors, pallet jacks, IT, and who owns each
- Site limits: footprint, ceiling, power, air, fumes, dust, and pedestrian traffic
- Safety and quality duties you will not hand off
- Explicit exclusions: upstream machines, building work, taxes, multi-year service
- What you will use to compare proposals (scope, not a sponsored ranking)
Leave room for a real approach
Lock the outcome and the constraints. Do not lock the mechanism unless you have already accepted the tradeoffs. A good integrator should be allowed to say that a lift assist, a conveyor, or “do not automate this yet” fits better than the cell you pictured.
Ask each respondent to restate the boundary, list assumptions, and separate equipment from installed scope. If they will not, you cannot compare them.
What an RFQ should not do
It should not be the first time operations, engineering, and finance look at the same job. It should not imply that a public vendor directory is a ranking. Innovation Peer’s vendor pages are a lookup, not pay-to-rank placement.
It should not authorize anyone to contact your suppliers on your behalf. If you want introductions after the scope is clearer, that is a separate approval.
When to write the RFQ
Write it after you can explain the process to a sceptical colleague. Published planning ranges on the cost pages are a way to see the size of the conversation. They are not lines to copy into the RFQ as your budget.
If you cannot yet fill the checklist, a free process review is the earlier step. You get a one-page summary: feasibility, gaps, options, and next step.
Related pages
Questions
Should I put a budget number in the RFQ?
A ceiling can be honest if finance has one. Do not present an illustrative planning range from this site as your approved budget or as a target the integrator must hit.
How many integrators should I send it to?
Enough to see more than one approach, and few enough that you can answer the same questions for each. A clear RFQ matters more than a long blind list.
Will Innovation Peer issue the RFQ for me?
No. We can help you see whether the project is ready for that document. Sending it, and any introduction, stays in your control.
Request a free process review
If the checklist has more blanks than answers, start with a free process review of one plant-floor job. The RFQ can follow once the boundary is real.