How we work
From incomplete evidence to a clear supply route.
The job begins with technical identification and ends with an agreed commercial and delivery route. It does not begin with a public stock claim or a guessed compatibility statement. Most requests arrive incomplete — a photograph and half a designation, a part number from a book that may not match the engine, a description of a symptom rather than of a part. That is the normal starting point on this equipment, not a failure of the enquiry, and the work is to close the gap between what is known and what can be quoted. What follows is the mechanics rather than the promise: what happens to a request when it lands, what makes one answerable straight away, who chooses the supply route, what a quotation line does and does not commit to, and what you are told when the route turns out not to exist. No reply time is stated anywhere on this page, because a reply time is not what decides whether you get the part. Three other things decide it: whether the item has been identified, whether a route to it exists, and whether the ship can still be reached when it arrives.
Send RFQ- 01
Send the evidence
Start with the part number, nameplate, photo, drawing, part-book page, old quotation or equipment information you have. Whatever is to hand is enough to begin: a photograph of a plate answers several questions at once, and a photograph of the removed component often answers the rest. Nothing needs to be complete before it is sent. We ask for what is missing once, in a single list, rather than discovering it a question at a time over several days. What that list looks like, together with the acknowledgement before it and the quotation after it, is shown field by field on the specimen documents page. The first thing that happens to a request is a read-through, not a price. It is broken into lines and each line is judged on its own: this one is identified and can go to a supplier as it stands, that one names a machine but not a component, the third could mean three different parts. A line carrying the maker, the type as it reads on the plate, a photograph, the quantity, the port and whether an OEM route is required can go out for pricing without another exchange. A line that says “pump seal, urgent” has to come back to you first, and coming back costs a day nobody wanted to spend. The difference is rarely the part number; it is whether the machine has been named closely enough for a supplier to answer without guessing.
- 02
Clarify the technical identity
We clarify maker, model, serial, range, duty and application context where they materially affect the request — and only where they do. On most equipment the model designation narrows a component to a family and something else narrows it to a build: a serial number, an arrangement or configuration number, a suffix, the builder named on the plate where the design house is a different company. Where a line is ambiguous by its own wording — an exhaust valve that could be a spindle, a seat, a housing or a complete cage — we read it back to you before anything is priced, so the quotation answers the item you meant. What you see at this step is the line written back as it was understood, in one message rather than in a drip of questions: maker, type as read from the plate, component, quantity, and any assumption that had to be made in order to price it. Where a figure decides the part, it is taken from the plate on the machine or from the component that came off, never from a catalogue page for a build that may not be yours. Part numbers move as well. An old book number can supersede into a later one, into a kit that carries items you did not ask for, or into nothing at all; when a number no longer stands you are told what it became, so the decision to accept the successor stays with you. If a line is still left with two possible builds, it is shown that way — as two variants with different prices rather than one averaged price — because the choice between them needs information that only exists on board.
- 03
Review the commercial route
We keep OEM-route, verified alternative, reconditioned and used requirements distinct, and describe an option only when it is confirmed. The route is a decision that belongs to the buyer, so it is presented per line rather than resolved quietly: some components can be assessed on their own, while others — anything matched, calibrated or balanced to an assembly, and anything sitting inside a class or certification requirement — can only be assessed against the machine they belong to. Which of the two a line is, and what evidence the route needs, is stated with the price rather than after it. Two things belong on the record here. A quotation line commits to a named item from a named route at a stated price, for as long as the offer says that price stands, with the lead time that route gave for it; it does not commit to a date on which the ship will hold the part, and it does not turn an unconfirmed identity into a confirmed one. Anything that changes the item, the route or the timing goes back to you for approval instead of being decided quietly: accepting an alternative, accepting a superseded number, splitting a line, shipping in part, or a price that has moved since the offer. And sometimes there is no route at all — the part has been discontinued by the maker, the lead time falls past the docking, the only holding is on the wrong continent, or the component is sold only inside an assembly. That is said plainly, together with whatever is left, such as repair, reconditioning, a sub-component or a machining route, and the line comes back unquoted rather than sitting open. Class requirements, certificates and warranty conditions are checked at this same step, and a route that does not meet them is not offered at all. What the verification review covers for each route, and which documents to ask for, is set out on the parts authenticity page.
- 04
Coordinate the delivery route
Quantity, port, ETA, packing, freight, documentation and handover expectations remain visible through order execution. Nothing here is promised before it is confirmed: a lead time is what a supplier has committed to for that item on that route, not an average, and where a date is not yet firm it is described as not yet firm. A part going into a planned overhaul and a part holding a vessel are handled differently, so it helps to say which one it is at the start rather than at the end. Through execution the record stays in one place: what was ordered against which line, what each supplier confirmed, what has shipped and under which documents, and who receives it at the far end. When a date moves, the message names the line that moved and by how much, rather than reporting that the order is progressing. The part of the chain the buyer controls is worth naming early — the agent appointed for the call, the airport of arrival for air freight, the person authorised to sign for the goods, and anything in the box that is a dangerous good — because each of those can leave a correctly supplied part in the right country and the wrong place. The documents that can travel with a shipment, the customs and Incoterms side of a transit delivery and the quotation-to-invoice flow each have their own page: supply documentation, customs and shipping and payment and invoicing.
Start with the facts
