RFQ Broadcast

Challenges RFQ Broadcast addresses

Done by hand, sourcing management means gathering the rfq to send and distribution settings, working through 6 separate passes over the same material, then producing distribution summary, invitations awaiting approval and suppliers not invited. None of it is difficult and all of it is exacting, which is the combination people are worst at holding. The errors that matter are the ones a tired reader does not notice, and they surface later — in a reconciliation, or in somebody’s reply. It waits until someone remembers it, which is usually the point at which it has become urgent. As volume grows the work does not get harder, only longer, and the first thing to go is the checking.

RFQ Broadcast runs that same sequence end to end and returns the result as structured artefacts. What it cannot settle it hands over rather than guesses at, and your correction is kept: it asks “Is this the right supplier list?” after every run, and those answers become the set it is measured against. Nothing that moves money, alters a contract or reaches a customer executes without human approval, and every action is written to an audit log. The gain is in the volume that no longer has to be read, not in removing the judgement.

How it works

Step 1: Reading the RFQ

First of 6. It works from the rfq to send and distribution settings and feeds the step after it.

Key Tasks:

• Locating the material: It works from the rfq to send and distribution settings, so nothing has to be forwarded, re-keyed or renamed first.
• Handling the format it arrives in: Scanned pages, native documents, spreadsheets and message bodies are all read the same way, including layouts where the relevant figure sits inside a table rather than a labelled field.
• Pulling the fields that matter: Only the fields the rest of the run needs are extracted. What cannot be read confidently is recorded as unread rather than filled in with a best guess.

Outcome:

• Fields extracted: The fields are available to the steps that follow, with anything unreadable listed rather than silently defaulted — which is what stops a bad extraction becoming a confident wrong answer three steps later.

Step 2: Pulling out what suppliers need to be told

Step 2 of 6. It takes what step 1 produced and hands its result to step 3.

Key Tasks:

• Working from the run so far: This step takes what step 1 produced and carries it toward step 3.
• Following the same rules each time: The behaviour is configuration rather than judgement made fresh per run, so sourcing management is handled the same way every time.
• Surfacing what it cannot settle: Anything ambiguous is passed on as ambiguous rather than resolved silently.

Outcome:

• Passed on: The result passes to the next step, with anything unresolved carried forward as an open item rather than dropped.

Step 3: Looking up approved suppliers in this category

Step 3 of 6. It takes what step 2 produced and hands its result to step 4.

Key Tasks:

• Reading each item on its own terms: Classification is from the content rather than from a keyword list, so items phrased in a way nobody anticipated still reach the right sourcing management bucket.
• Applying the same boundaries every time: The definitions do not drift between runs, which is what makes a count from this month comparable to one from last.
• Keeping the confidence: A borderline item is assigned with its confidence recorded rather than filed away as certain.

Outcome:

• Confidently classified: The item is grouped and counted, and moves on without review.
• Below the confidence threshold: It is held for a person rather than placed in the closest bucket — the wrong bucket is worse than an unfilled one, because it disappears into a count.

Step 4: Deciding who should be invited

Step 4 of 6. It takes what step 3 produced and hands its result to step 5.

Key Tasks:

• Handling who should be invited: The work at this step is who should be invited, scoped to that and not extended to anything the run has already settled.
• Leaving the record behind it: What this step did and what it decided are written down, so the result can be traced without re-running the step.
• Working from the run so far: This step takes what step 3 produced and carries it toward step 5.

Outcome:

• Who should be invited handled: The result passes to the next step, with anything unresolved carried forward as an open item rather than dropped.

Step 5: Drafting each invitation

Step 5 of 6. It takes what step 4 produced and hands its result to step 6.

Key Tasks:

• Working from the extracted values: Figures come from what step 4 produced rather than from a re-keyed copy, which removes the transcription step where arithmetic errors usually originate.
• Applying your rules: Bands, rates and rounding are configuration. The same inputs produce the same figures on every run.
• Keeping the components: Each total is returned with the parts that produced it, so a figure that looks wrong can be traced rather than recomputed.

Outcome:

• Figures that reconcile: Figures that reconcile to their own components — the totals shown and the lines above them agree, which is the property that makes a number safe to quote onward.

Step 6: Summarizing the distribution

Last of 6. It takes what step 5 produced and produces distribution summary and invitations awaiting approval.

Key Tasks:

• Computing the distribution: What is produced here is the distribution, derived rather than carried over, so it cannot disagree with the lines it is built from.
• Reconciling before returning: Totals are checked against their own components before anything leaves the step, so a number that does not add up is caught here rather than downstream.
• Working from the extracted values: Figures come from what step 5 produced rather than from a re-keyed copy, which removes the transcription step where arithmetic errors usually originate.

Outcome:

• The distribution computed: Figures that reconcile to their own components — the totals shown and the lines above them agree, which is the property that makes a number safe to quote onward.

Step 7: Your review, and what it changes

The run ends with a person, not with a result being filed.

Key Tasks:

• Asking a specific question: It asks “Is this the right supplier list?” rather than for a rating. A question about this run is answerable; a score out of five is not.
• Keeping the correction: What you change is recorded against the case that produced it, so the disagreement is retrievable rather than absorbed.
• Building the evaluation set: Those cases become what the agent is measured on. It is scored against your judgement rather than against a general benchmark.

Outcome:

• A measured agent, not an assumed one: The cases RFQ Broadcast handles well and the cases it does not are both visible, and the second list is the one that decides what changes. Nothing is retrained silently on the back of a single correction.

Why use RFQ Broadcast?

• A batch is one run, not a hundred: It works the whole set in a single pass and returns a row per item with its verdict, so the volume that needs no attention never has to be opened.
• Takes documents as they arrive: Scanned pages, native files and awkward layouts are read as they are. Nothing has to be renamed, re-keyed or converted into a template before a run.
• Corrected by the people using it: After each run it asks “Is this the right supplier list?”. Those answers become the evaluation set, which means it is measured against your judgement rather than ours.
• Reads and reports, does not act: It returns a result for review rather than writing changes back on its own. Anything that moves money, alters a contract or reaches a customer needs human approval first.
• Structured results, not prose: All 3 artefacts are structured — distribution summary, invitations awaiting approval and suppliers not invited — so a result can be scanned, sorted and acted on instead of read end to end.