RFQ Management

Request for quotation (RFQ) is a process where RFQs are sent to vendors for the procurement of products. Information regarding items, quantities, and related documents can be specified in an RFQ. It is an essential component of any procurement toolkit.

The RFQ application created using Mendix includes the following phases for request for quotation (RFQ) procedure:

Creating and sending RFQs to vendors.
Receiving, negotiating, comparing, and selecting the RFQ responses.

Features

Rendering the 3D design and working on Markups, slicing & dicing of the data.
Managing and sending emails to the relevant RFQ vendors.
Restricted access to the application for accessing the 3D files, support files, etc.
Tracking the winner’s list in the application.
Connection with Teamcenter to get the design data including the 3D files, PDFs or other support documents.

Configuring Connection with Teamcenter

To configure connection to Teamcenter, the following steps are required:

On the Admin Homepage, select the TEAMCENTER CONFIGURATIONS tile.
Click New on the Teamcenter Environment Configuration page, specify the required details and click Save.
Once updated, log on to Teamcenter using the TEAMCENTER LOGIN icon.

How to fetch and manage the design data including the 3D files

To get data from Teamcenter, the end-user of your app needs to be authenticated and authorized.

For the use to fetch and traverse the design data a Nanoflow can be used as it is blazingly fast and most beneficial in offline apps but also can be useful for executing logic that doesn’t retrieve a lot of data.

The SearchTC nanoflow existing in the 3D Viewer for Teamcenter module enables setting search criteria (for example, for searching by item name, item ID, or revision ID ）and fetching a model list.

This nanoflow will first check if an active Teamcenter user session is alive and then perform the search, so logging in is essential before performing the model search.

A list of ModelDocument objects will be returned because of this nanoflow, which means this nanoflow can be set as the data source of a list view widget.

View 3D Models from Teamcenter in Mendix

To view the 3D models, select the Model icon from the list of Model Documents, click ‘Open Model’ and view the 3D model.

Restricted access to the vendors to work with the 3D files

Vendors must have the required roles and permissions to access and use the services of the application. age permissions on lists and list items at any time just like you can with files.

Share a list or list items with specific people

For a new or existing item document, the vendors can provide access to selected users. Users can collaborate with each other to:

Add, edit, view, reply, or delete comments.
Assign tasks, view, and download action items

The need to manage RFQ Vendors

User management allows the administrator to manage resources and organize users according to their needs and roles.

A request for a quotation typically implies more than just the cost of items and may require detailed information about the project and its requirements. Hence, it is important to provide full product or project specifications whenever a quotation is requested.

Summary

Like the number of processes, a broad range of stakeholders involved in supply chain management—product design, quality management, procurement, supply and logistics—can be difficult to navigate. The Mendix low-code platform—and apps such as RFQ/Supplier Collaboration—streamlines enterprise-wide collaboration through standardized and harmonized insights, actions, and statuses.

RFQ is a reliable process as a company will receive bids only from authentic vendors. On the other hand, as RFQs reduce the amount of competition, a company may miss receiving the lowest-available price or learning about new high-quality vendors.

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