Buyer Information
Frequently Asked Questions

What is Machine Shop Quotes and www.MachiningPartner.com?
How do we set up an account with MachiningPartner.com?
What manufacturing processes are supported by MachiningPartner.com?
What are the benefits of using MachiningPartner.com?
What are the benefits of using MachiningPartner's Project Management services?
What are MachiningPartner's Supplier Qualification services?
What are the costs of MachiningPartner's Buyer Services?
How do I submit an RFQ?
What happens after RFQ submission?
May I attach CAD, Word or other file types to the RFQ?
How can I protect my intellectual property?
What happens if an RFQ is incomplete or requires changes?
In the quoting process, can I collaborate with suppliers?
As a buyer, can I remain anonymous during the RFQ process?
Is due diligence available on quoting suppliers?
Is supplier due diligence verifiable?
Am I obligated to use a quoting supplier?
How do I place an order with the supplier I have selected?
What is the NTMA?

What is Machine Shop Quotes and www.MachiningPartner.com?
Machine Shop Quotes and www.MachiningPartner.com are the products offered by Low Cost Solution LLC. They offer you the facilities of an online marketplace where you, as a buyer, can avail the services of manufacturing service providers, audited and selected by our professionals.
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How do we set up an account with Machine Shop Quotes and www.MachiningPartner.com?
You can register online with us as a buyer, or you can get in touch with us for more details.
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What manufacturing processes are supported by Machine Shop Quotes and www.MachiningPartner.com?
There are hundreds of categories of manufacturing disciplines practiced by the service providers. www.MachiningPartner.com has carefully audited and created a database of manufacturing service providers for you to source. To learn more about this, click here
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What are the benefits of using Machine Shop Quotes and www.MachiningPartner.com?
www.MachingPartner.com provides you with tools by which you can access the marketplace and Supplier Qualification database, which helps you to source the manufacturing service provider with the right specialization for your project. This not only cuts down your sourcing time, but also saves substantially on your cost.
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What are the benefits of using Machine Shop Quotes and www.MachiningPartner.com's Project Management services?
The project management services offered by MachingPartner.com provide you with continuous support, managing your project throughout, till it gets completed. Our project manager is available to you on your request. Our project manager will provide you all the guidance and co-ordinate all the actions that need to be taken concerning your project, including your requests for quotes and your project files.

What are Machine Shop Quotes and www.MachiningPartner.com's Supplier Qualification services?
You can have all the necessary reference checks done for the service providers who you have short-listed. We do our part when we enlist the service providers after an elaborate audit of his profile, credentials, and self-declared information. We receive feed-back from other buyers regarding their comments about the service providers that they partnered with, and we evaluate them and make them available to you online for the purpose of your selection. You can further shortlist your selection, by evaluating the aspects of cost, quality, delivery, and customer technical support.

As you complete your survey of the manufacturing service providers, our team will provide you will all the support you need, working with you creating and adding new service providers, and matching your requirements. In doing this, we shall define your project objectives, detailing out the technical aspect of your project, and chalk out the most optimum methodology.

You can have the facility of audits done on your short-listed and existing service providers nation-wide. We have the expertise of quality auditors, who can conduct ISO gap analysis, or provide you with custom services as per your requirement.
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What are the costs of Machine Shop Quotes and www.MachiningPartner.com's Buyer Services?
Buyers can register with us free. There is no cost involved in participating for buyers. However, we do charge fees for engineering and supplier qualification services. The fees depend upon the project scope. Contact us now for more details.
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How do I submit a "Request for Quote"?
As soon as you request for a quote, your requirement data is matched with the audited service provider information that we hold in our database. The service providers who qualify for your project are made aware of your requirements and allowed to review your project details, get clarifications from you by collaborating with you, and submit quotations.
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What happens after requesting for quotations?
After you have lodged your quotation with us, we take over in matching those against our manufacturing service provider database in Machine Shop Quotes and www.MachiningPartner.com. We then help you to locate the qualified service providers, who will be allowed to view your project requirements and get the required clarifications needed, and submit their offers online.
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May I attach CAD, Word or other file types to the RFQ?
Your project documents, along with your CAD files may be attached along with your quote request. These can be viewed by the service providers, and clarifications, if any, could be sought from you by the vendors, before submission of their quotes.
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How can I protect my intellectual property?
After you have posted your request for quotes, a non-disclosure agreement must be entered into by the vendors before they are allowed to view your project documents.
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What happens if a RFQ is incomplete or requires changes?
You need to be careful in completing the request for quotes, and maintain accuracy of the document upon its submission. You need to take every care to prepare your quote request, since the offers submitted by the service providers depend much on the information that you have supplied. The reliability of the quotations submitted is based on the information supplied by you as a buyer. In managing your project, Machine Shop Quotes and www.MachiningPartner.com takes up the responsibility to review the quote requests that you submit along with other documents related to your project. It is made sure that the information submitted by you in requesting for quotes are complete in every sense before they are presented to the service providers for viewing. If the information of the request for quote document is found to be incomplete, you get to be notified regarding the matter. As you take up the corrections and submit them again, after a review by us, they get posted in the marketplace. The quote request revisions are generally done through the menu provided to the registered buyers.
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In the quoting process, can I collaborate with suppliers?
It is absolutely necessary that buyers and service providers remain in constant touch, communicating with each other right after the quote request has been submitted. We archive the messages exchanged between the buyer and the service providers with references to the particular quote request document. In communicating, you would require to maintain the terms set for using our services.
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As a buyer, can I remain anonymous during the RFQ process?
Every effort is made to protect buyer anonymity by Machine Shop Quotes and www.MachiningPartner.com. However, to remain anonymous from the service providers, you would need to choose the option as you submit your request for quotes to the service providers in our database. It is to be noted that any documents that you attach with your request for quote, including the CAD file, may bear your company name and other details.
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Is due diligence available on quoting suppliers?
The marketplace services offered to you by www.MachiningPartner.com provide you with a level of confidence that is unparallel in the industry. The tools provided to you, enables you to get a very deep look into the capabilities of the new suppliers, backed up by in-depth profiling of the service providers, which facilitates the evaluation process in an efficient manner. This saves you not only the time but your cost is drastically cut down.
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Is supplier due diligence verifiable?
You can request for an audit of the service provider's facility, which would then be taken up by our expert. The cost of such audit would depend upon the size of the industry, the supplier type, and its location.
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Am I obligated to use a quoting supplier?
You are not bound to use the suppliers from Machine Shop Quotes and www.MachiningPartner.com, although we have especially selected the vendors through a rigorous process of audit. More-over, sourcing your service providers through Machine Shop Quotes and www.MachiningPartner.com is fast, easy and cost effective. You may ofcourse utilise your own sourced service providers, or also invite them to quote for your project along with the vendors sourced from Machine Shop Quotes and www.MachiningPartner.com

Machine Shop Quotes and www.MachiningPartner.com provide messaging system, which the buyer is encouraged to use to communicate with the suppliers. This way a record of the discussions between you and your provider is maintained, and could be referenced back when required.
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How do I place an order with the supplier I have selected?
As a buyer, you can directly notify project award to the particular supplier by confirming it on the supplier's quotation itself. For any production related matters, the buyer contacts the supplier directly.
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What is the NTMA?
Over 1,800 quality manufacturing suppliers, throughout the US , are represented by the National Tooling & Machining Association (NTMA). The companies who are the members of this association are involved in design and manufacturing of special tools, dies, jigs, fixtures, gages, molds, special machines, and precision machined parts, having large and vital customer base, such as, defense, automotive, aerospace, appliance, agricultural equipment, electronics, medical, semiconductors, and many more. In this scenario, every one of these manufacturing service providers has been assigned with projects at one time or the other by the industries. There are over 125,000 skilled tool makers, die makers, mold makers, and machinists who form NTMA. Collectively these skilled service providers have a yearly capacity of approximately 265 million skilled man-hours. The company members of NTMA are in all the 43 states out of the 50 in the US . These are organized as local chapters, comprising of nearly 50 chapters, and tool centers all over the country.
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