🧭 Walkthrough

One RFQ, nine steps, start to quotation

This is the exact wizard your team works through inside SmartCast — from the first drawing upload to the exported quotation. Nothing here is simplified for marketing; it's the real flow.

1
Casting Info

Upload the casting drawing

Upload the casting/blank (GRZ) drawing as a PDF or image. Claude reads the title block and auto-fills part name, casting drawing number, revision, material, and casting weight. A readiness checklist flags anything still missing — like a part name or customer — before you can move on.

2
Machining

Upload the machining drawing

Upload the finished/machined drawing. SmartCast extracts the machined drawing number, revision, and any additional specs, and automatically suggests surface treatments based on what it reads.

3
Cast Balloon

Review the casting balloon plot

Every dimension and tolerance on the casting drawing gets plotted as a numbered balloon — across every physical sheet if the drawing has multiple pages, numbered in sheet order. The Engineering Review Workspace lets you zoom in, correct a misread value, re-crop a view for a cleaner read, or reposition a balloon by clicking directly on the drawing.

4
Mach Balloon

Review the machining balloon plot

The same balloon review, applied to the machining drawing — including GD&T callouts and machined-feature tolerances. Each balloon carries a confidence score: Verified once an engineer approves it, otherwise High/Review/Manual based on how confident the extraction was.

5
Process Flow

Confirm the manufacturing process

Lay out the process steps the part actually goes through — casting, trimming, machining operations, surface treatment — so the costing stage has a real process route to cost against, not a generic template.

6
Costing

Let the numbers roll up automatically

Raw material, tooling amortization, machining, and surface treatment costs are calculated from the balloon data and process route — editable line by line before anything is finalized.

7
Quotation

Build the customer-facing quotation

Turn the costed RFQ into the commercial quotation — pricing, terms, and the customer/part details pulled straight from steps 1–2, ready for review before it goes out.

8
Tooling & Gauges

Capture tooling and gauge requirements

Record the tooling and inspection gauges the part needs, so that information travels with the RFQ rather than living in a separate spreadsheet.

9
Export

Export the quotation and balloon package

Export a branded Excel quotation and the full plotted balloon drawing package (every sheet, every balloon) as a customer-ready PDF — the Excel balloon sheet lists nominal and tolerance values per balloon, without exposing internal confidence scores.

Along the way

What happens after approval

Once an engineer approves the review, the RFQ moves through a Kanban pipeline — draft, submitted for approval, approved, quoted — with role-based sign-off, and the customer record is created or updated automatically so your CRM builds itself as you quote.

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