What to Put in a UV Flatbed Printer RFQ So Every Quote Comes Back Comparable

You send the same email to three Chinese printer builders: "Please quote your 2513 UV flatbed printer." Ten days later you have three PDFs. One quotes a machine with six heads, one with four, one does not say. One price is EXW, one is FOB Shenzhen, one is silent on Incoterms. Two include a RIP licence, the third mentions software nowhere. One lists a spare-parts kit; the others do not. The prices differ by 35 per cent and you cannot say whether that is margin, specification or omission.

Nothing went wrong at the suppliers' end. They answered the question you asked, which was open. A UV flatbed printer RFQ specification checklist exists to close it — to define the machine tightly enough that the only remaining variable is price, and then to fix the format the answer comes back in so three quotes stack on top of each other line by line.

This is not paperwork for its own sake. On capital equipment, a well-built RFQ is also your first competence test of the supplier: whoever fills in every line without inventing anything is showing you how they will behave when a machine is on your floor and something needs a straight answer.

Structure the RFQ in four blocks

Send one document, not a thread of questions. Four blocks, in this order, because each one constrains the next.

Block A — the job. What you print, on what, at what volume. This is the block most buyers skip and it is the one that lets a competent engineer tell you that you asked for the wrong machine.

Block B — the machine. Every configurable line item, each requiring a value in the reply.

Block C — commercial. Price basis, Incoterms, payment structure, lead time, crating, documentation.

Block D — response format. The table you want back, and the instruction that any line the supplier cannot meet is to be marked not offered rather than left blank.

That last block does more work than it looks. Blanks are ambiguous; "not offered" is comparable. Say so explicitly and most suppliers comply.

Block A: describe the job before you describe the machine

Give the supplier enough to size the machine correctly and to warn you if a different model fits better.

• Substrate list, by material and thickness range: acrylic, foamed PVC, aluminium composite, polycarbonate, MDF or plywood, glass, coated metal, corrugated board, leather, and anything unusual. Note which are dark or transparent, because those drive the white-ink decision.
• Sheet and part sizes, biggest and most common, in millimetres — and your biggest finished part, which is not always your biggest sheet.
• Object work, if any: maximum height of a raised or three-dimensional part, and whether any items are cylindrical. That single line is what separates a standard flatbed from a high-clearance model or a rotary machine, and asking it early avoids quoting the wrong family.
• Layer stack you sell: four-colour only, white plus colour, or white plus colour plus varnish. This drives channel count and it drives throughput.
• Monthly volume in square metres or sheets, and the shift pattern you intend to run.
• Quality reference: attach one real production file and, if you can, a printed sample from your current process at the standard your customers accept.

Two sentences at the end of Block A save a great deal of time: state which of your models best fits this job and why, and tell us if any part of the requirement is outside what the quoted machine can do. An honest supplier will use that opening. Note the answers — they are as informative as the price.

Block B: the machine lines, each needing a value

This is the core of the checklist. Every line below asks for a number, a name or a yes/no, so three replies can be laid side by side.

Two notes on using that table. First, do not delete lines because you think you do not care. Line 3 (printable area versus bed) and line 22 (RIP licence model) are the two that most often turn into a surprise after delivery. Second, ask for line 25 explicitly priced, because an option bundled invisibly into one quote and excluded from another is the single largest source of false price gaps.

The three lines that decide the next five years

If you strip the RFQ back to its irreducible core, three answers commit you longest.

Printhead choice. Heads determine ink compatibility, drop size, service cost and who can support the machine. This is a decision to make before the machine, not after, and the trade-offs between the common industrial options are set out in the comparison of Ricoh Gen-6 and Seiko printheads.

Ink system openness. An open system lets you buy ink competitively; a chipped system does not. Either can be a reasonable purchase, but only one of them can be re-priced later.

Bed and clearance. Bed size is easy to check and hard to change. Clearance decides whether the machine ever prints an object rather than a sheet.

Block C: commercial, documentation and acceptance

Price is only comparable when it sits on the same basis. Require these lines filled in.

• Price basis and Incoterm, named per Incoterms 2020, with the port or place stated: EXW at the named works, FOB at the named port, or CIF at your named destination port. Ask for the same machine priced on at least two bases so you can see the freight component. The differences are set out in the FOB, CIF and EXW guide for China shipments.
• Payment structure, as a percentage split against named events. A structure quoted as a deposit against a balance before shipment is common in this trade; whether any portion can be retained against commissioning sign-off is a negotiation worth opening in the RFQ rather than after the quote lands.
• Lead time in working days from receipt of deposit and approved configuration to ready-for-collection, plus a separate figure for crating.
• Crating and shipping: crated dimensions and gross weight, whether the machine splits for doorway access, and confirmation that timber packaging is heat-treated and marked to ISPM-15, which is a standing requirement for wood packaging entering most markets.
• Documentation pack: operation manual, electrical schematics, pneumatic diagram, illustrated parts list with part numbers, and the language of each. A parts list without part numbers turns every future reorder into a photograph attached to an email.
• Service annex: warranty table, spares kit, parts stock and dispatch commitment, support response window, and on-site dispatch costs. Those clauses are worth drafting properly, and the anatomy is broken down in the piece on spare parts, warranty and service clauses.
• Acceptance protocol: the test you will run before the balance moves, written as pass/fail criteria. Typically a keyline print at maximum printable area, a nozzle check on every channel, a timed run in the named production mode, and a print on substrate you supplied.

Ask for a test print, and specify it

Sampling on a standard model can often be arranged quickly, and a supplier that runs your files and substrates before shipment turns the RFQ from a paper exercise into evidence. Specify what you want back: the printed sample itself, photographs of the machine running it, and a timed video in the mode you intend to sell. Then say when — before the balance payment, not after. Comparing print speed claims properly needs that timing evidence, and the method is worked through in the guide to comparing quoted square metres per hour.

Common questions

How many suppliers should I send it to?

Three is the working number. Two gives you no median; five produces a comparison exercise larger than the purchase justifies and tends to attract intermediaries rather than builders. Before you send, confirm each recipient actually builds machines rather than reselling them — the tells are covered in the guide to telling a factory from a trading company.

Will a detailed RFQ make suppliers quote higher?

It usually makes them quote differently. A vague enquiry invites a low headline price with options stripped out, which is how you end up paying for the RIP, the spares kit and the extraction separately. A specified enquiry produces a higher-looking number that is closer to your real landed cost, which is the number you needed. The pattern behind quote spread is examined in why China quotes for the same spec differ.

What if a supplier refuses to fill in the table?

Take it as data. Some will decline because the machine is quoted to a standard configuration and they will not commit to line-level values; that is a legitimate position and you can decide whether to work with it. A supplier who returns the table with values they cannot support is a worse outcome than one who marks lines not offered, which is why the instruction in Block D matters.

What to ask the supplier next

Use this as the covering note on the RFQ itself. It converts the document into a request with a deadline and a format.

1. Return the Block B table complete, with every line valued and any line you do not offer marked not offered.
2. Quote the machine on two Incoterms bases — EXW at your works and one of FOB or CIF at a named port — so the freight component is visible.
3. Price every option separately: RIP seats, spares kit, extraction, jigs, training days, commissioning.
4. State lead time in working days from deposit and approved configuration, and separately for crating and collection.
5. Attach the documentation list with the language of each item, and confirm whether an illustrated parts list with part numbers is included.
6. Attach the service annex — warranty table, parts dispatch commitment, support response window, on-site engineer costs.
7. Confirm the acceptance protocol you have proposed, or return an amended version, and confirm it can run before the balance payment.
8. Name the model you recommend for the job in Block A, and say plainly what in the requirement the quoted machine cannot do.

Longrun Printing Machinery is a reasonable name to test that RFQ against. It is a Shenzhen manufacturer established in 2009 in Longgang district, with a 40-person engineering and assembly team producing roughly 300 machines a year across UV flatbed, corrugated-carton digital and cylindrical UV lines — including a 2513 flatbed published with a 2500 x 1300 mm bed, Ricoh Gen-6 heads and white and varnish layers available, and a Seiko-head high-clearance model for thick and uneven parts. Its published process opens with a consult-and-configure step where engineers match a standard model or configure to a buyer's substrate and size, machines are sold from one unit, terms are quoted as T/T 30 per cent deposit against 70 per cent before shipment on EXW, FOB or CIF, lead time is stated as by configuration on request, and crates are described as export-crated for sea or air. The line-level values — printable area, head count, speed table, documentation languages, warranty terms — are not published, which is exactly the gap the RFQ is built to close. The general discipline of writing a specification a Chinese factory can quote against is covered in how to write a product spec sheet for a Chinese factory, and the paperwork to collect alongside the quotation is listed in what documents to ask a China supplier for before a first order.