How panel and switchgear buyers choose a supplier: find who writes the specification

Your price for the LT panels was the lowest the contractor received. The order still went to a builder named in the consultant's specification. That is how panel and switchgear orders are decided: by three people at three different times. The consultant chooses acceptable makes and builders at the design stage, months before anyone asks you to quote. The electrical contractor chooses among those at the bid stage. The end user's electrical head approves the drawings and lives with the panel afterwards. So on every enquiry, find out who wrote the specification, and when.

Three people decide, months apart

The consultant writes the specification and the single-line diagram, and names the approved makes for breakers, relays and meters. Larger jobs list acceptable panel builders too. The consultant chooses on what can be checked: test reports for the designs you offer, installations of a similar rating to visit, and drawings that come in clean. Which tests a design needs is for the consultant, the certifying body and your own adviser to settle, and the rules differ and change.

The electrical contractor or EPC firm buys panels against the bill of quantities. Among builders who comply, the contractor chooses on price, credit and delivery in the order the site needs it. There is one more test. Will your drawings be approved first time? Nobody writes this down, but the contractor's running bill waits until they are.

The end user's electrical head approves the general arrangement drawings, may witness the factory acceptance test at your works, and calls you when a feeder trips at night. On a new project this voice is heard through the consultant. In a running plant the electrical head decides alone.

Which kind of project is it?

Before you price anything, sort the enquiry into one of three kinds.

A new building or plant with a consultant is decided at design stage. If your name or your makes are not in the specification, you are quoting to be compared, and are unlikely to win.

An expansion or retrofit in a running plant is decided by the maintenance or electrical head. There may be no consultant at all. What wins is a builder who can fit the change into a shutdown window and will be there when it is switched on.

Panels for a machine builder or OEM are decided by its design engineer, then repeated for years. That buyer is closer to the enclosure buyer in our note on how buyers choose between fabricators.

A project card for every enquiry

The technical questions about drawings, makes and ratings belong in a query sheet, as set out in quoting a control panel. The project card is different. It records who decides. Fill it in from the first call and keep it with the enquiry.

Project: ____________________   Site: __________   Enquiry from: __________
Kind:  new project with consultant / running plant / OEM panels
Consultant firm and design lead: ____________________
Specification issued?  yes / no / not yet written
Approved makes include ours?  yes / no / "or equivalent"
Approved panel builders listed?  yes, we are on it / yes, we are not / no list
Contractors bidding: ____________________
Who approves GA drawings: ____________________
Factory test witnessed by: ____________________
Order expected by: __________   Who signs it: ____________________

Three blanks tell you most of what you need: the consultant's name, whether you are on the list, and who signs.

Where to spend your effort

Read the card, then apply these rules.

• Specification written, you are not on it, bid closing soon. Quote in the listed makes if you can, with any alternate on a separate line, or decline politely. Arguing with the specification now wastes your estimator's week. Note the consultant's name for the next project.
• Specification not yet written. This is the project worth a visit. Ask the contractor or the client who the consultant is, and go.
• Running plant, no consultant. Go straight to the electrical head. Ask about the shutdown date before you ask about anything else.
• Approved builder, contractor comparing prices. Compete on drawing approval and delivery sequence as well as price. A contractor remembers whose drawings held up the running bill.

Skip the card for standard distribution boards sold through dealers. There, the dealer chooses, and a consultant does not usually name a builder.

Imagine a panel builder in Sahibabad

Imagine an LT panel builder in Sahibabad, Ghaziabad, who wins most work through two Delhi contractors. One of them asks the owner to price the power and motor control panels for a component maker's new plant in Bawal. The owner quotes fast and low. The contractor likes the price and cannot use it. The Gurugram consultant's specification lists acceptable builders, and Sahibabad is not on it. The contractor asks for a deviation. The consultant refuses, having never seen the works or a test report from it.

The owner starts filling a project card on every enquiry. Later the same consultant's name turns up behind two more enquiries from the same contractors, so the owner asks for a meeting with the consultant's electrical design lead, bringing general arrangement drawings, test reports for those designs and a list of plants the lead may call. The first meeting goes nowhere: the lead is polite, keeps the papers and does not reply. The owner tries again by inviting the lead to the works to see a factory test on a job already running. That visit costs a production day, because the line stops while the test is set up. On the consultant's next project, the Sahibabad firm is among the acceptable builders. Both contractors can now use its price.

Fill the cards and find the blank names

Fill in a card for each enquiry open on your desk, from what you already know. A blank consultant's name is the first call, and what to bring to that meeting is in our note on getting specified by consultants and contractors. Getting in front of the right decision maker is decision-maker outreach, and how the other products in the trade reach their buyers is on the electrical equipment manufacturing page. If you keep losing orders you priced well, tell us what you need.