Vessel CoreTechnical supply desk Send RFQ

Buyer tool

RFQ evidence checklist for marine engine-room spare parts supply.

Choose the equipment category and mark the evidence you already have. The checklist helps you see what is ready, what may need clarification and what to include before sending the RFQ to a marine spare parts supplier. Nothing on it is there for tidiness. Each item closes a question the others leave open: one settles which machine the part belongs to, another settles what the part has to do once it is fitted, a third settles how many are wanted and where they have to arrive. A request that answers all three can be worked on as it stands. A request that answers one of them starts a conversation instead, and the conversation is what costs the days.

Start checklist Send RFQ

Evidence readiness only

Prepare the request before supplier outreach.

This tool does not confirm compatibility, availability, price, approval or delivery. It only helps prepare a clearer evidence package for the first RFQ review. What it can do is separate two kinds of evidence that are usually sent as one. Evidence that identifies says which item this is: maker, designation, serial, tag, the plate itself. Evidence that qualifies says what the item has to withstand or do in the position it occupies: the medium it sees, the connection it sits on, the range it is read against, the certificate a survey will ask for. An identified item can be found. Only a qualified item can be offered against a duty, which is why a request rich in identity can still stall on a single missing line about service conditions.

  • Use it before sending: choose the category, mark available evidence and copy the summary if helpful. The useful part is what stays unmarked. A blank box is not untidy paperwork; it is a question that returns as a clarification email several days later, when the engine room is at sea, the cover is back on and the answer costs far more to obtain than it does while you are still standing in front of the machine.
  • Keep sensitive context out: do not enter vessel names, IMO numbers, buyer contacts, private prices or other personal or confidential data.
  • Send the real RFQ separately: use the RFQ form or email the Vessel Core supply desk when ready. Say in that message which of two answers you actually want. A preliminary indication, enough to size a budget line or decide whether to keep going, can usually be built on identity alone. A firm offer is a different document: it names an exact item against an exact duty, and it stays out of reach while any of the qualifying evidence is still open, because a price withdrawn after the fact costs more than a question asked before it.

RFQ evidence checklist

Mark the evidence already available.

Use general categories only. The summary is meant to guide your RFQ preparation, not to collect private vessel or commercial data. If you can mark only one identity box, mark the nameplate photograph. The plate is a reading of the machine as it stands now; a number written from memory, or from the file where it was last recorded, is a memory of the machine as someone believed it to be. The plate also carries fields nobody thought to ask for, such as a builder name standing beside a designer name, a suffix or an arrangement reference, and those are often the fields that decide which component is meant.

Identity evidence

Reference evidence

Technical context

Commercial context

Browser-only buyer workspace

Build a line-item worksheet before you send the RFQ.

Structure up to 20 requested items, then copy a tabular summary, download a spreadsheet-compatible CSV or print the worksheet for your records. Keep the reference column filled even when you are unsure of it, and add where the number came from, because a part number can mislead in three quiet ways. A catalogue designation can have been superseded years ago and still look entirely current, since the older form stays printed in the book on board for the working life of the machine. Equipment built under licence is often designated under the system of the builder rather than the system of the designer, so a single component honestly carries several correct numbers at the same time. And a number copied from a previous order describes what was bought then, which is not always what is fitted now.

Local to this page

The values you enter are not sent to Vessel Core, the RFQ form, analytics or a server. They disappear when you clear or reload the page unless you explicitly copy, download or print them.

RFQ line-item preparation worksheet. Buyer-entered information is not checked, approved or sent by this tool. Use one row per item, and read the evidence column line by line rather than for the request as a whole: a list is only as identified as its least identified line, and a single vague row is enough to hold the clear ones behind it.
Maker Model / type Serial / tag Part / reference Description Qty Unit Available evidence Buyer preference Actions

3 of 20 line items

Preparation aid only. This worksheet does not verify completeness, compatibility, availability, approval, price or delivery. OEM or alternative is recorded only as your review preference. Mark a certificate or approval requirement only on the lines that genuinely carry one: items inside a class or statutory scope, pressure-retaining and lifting components, parts needing material traceability, anything a surveyor will open the file on. Putting the same requirement against a gasket set, a filter element or a lamp does not make that line safer. It narrows the line to whatever route can issue the document, and an easy item then waits behind paperwork it was never going to need.

Open the separate RFQ form

Next step

Ready enough to start? Send the RFQ with the evidence you have.

Photos, nameplates, drawings and part-book pages can be sent by replying to the confirmation email after the RFQ form is submitted. A useful photograph set is rarely one picture. It is the plate, the item whole, and the item where it sits. A tight close-up of the fracture proves only that something broke, and it removes every cue at once: nothing in the frame gives scale, nothing shows which way up the item goes, nothing shows how it is held or what it is bolted to. Step back one pace, leave a hand or a spanner in the frame for size, and the same photograph begins answering questions instead of raising them.

01 Prepare evidence

Use the checklist to identify missing category, identity, technical or timing context. Whatever stays unmarked here is what gets asked for later.

02 Send RFQ

Use the RFQ form for the request summary or email the supply desk directly.

03 Reply with files

Send photos, nameplates, drawings and part-book pages by replying to the confirmation email. Files beat transcriptions: a plate photographed at an awkward angle still carries characters that a typed line can quietly drop.

04 Route review

OEM, verified alternative or clarification route is reviewed according to evidence quality. An alternative can only be assessed where the duty is documented, not the designation alone. Who reads the answer varies as well. A line under class survey is closed by documents the surveyor will read and sign: the certificate type, the standard it is issued under, heat or batch traceability and the party it is issued to. Those documents have to exist before the part ships, not follow it. A plain consumable closes on fit dimensions and availability, and asking for a certificate that was never issued for it only delays supply.

ActionSend RFQ Emailsales@vesselcore.eu GuideRFQ evidence guide GuideNo part number? ToolUnit converter