RFQ practice
The RFQ scope checklist that removes most price variance
Updated 2026-08-23 · 8 min read
Short answer
Most of the spread between aquaculture equipment quotations comes from scope, not from supplier pricing. Fixing six things before issue — biological basis, water quality and source, energy assumptions, package boundaries, delivery terms, and required documentation — removes the majority of that variance and makes offers genuinely comparable.
- Quote spreads above roughly 2x usually indicate a scope problem, not a market problem.
- State design temperature, target biomass and feed load; suppliers size on biology, not on tank count.
- Define the battery limits of each package in one sentence per interface.
- Ask for the same commercial terms (Incoterm, currency, validity, payment milestones) from everyone.
1. Biological basis
- Species and strain, target harvest size and target annual tonnage.
- Design water temperature range and seasonal profile.
- Peak standing biomass and peak daily feed load — these drive oxygen and filtration sizing.
- Stocking strategy: batch, continuous or multi-cohort.
2. Water source and quality
- Source type (borehole, surface, coastal intake, municipal) with available flow and any seasonal limits.
- Salinity, alkalinity, hardness, iron/manganese, TSS and any known contaminants.
- Discharge constraints and permitted effluent limits, if known.
3. Energy, site and civil interface
- Grid voltage, frequency, phases, reliability and backup arrangement.
- Whether civil works, buildings and foundations are in or out of the supplier's scope.
- Site access constraints for containers and crane requirements.
4. Commercial and documentation baseline
- Incoterm and named place, currency, quote validity period.
- Payment milestones and warranty duration.
- Required documents: general arrangement drawings, P&ID, equipment list with make/model, power schedule, spares list, O&M manuals, commissioning and training scope.
How to use it with a client
Run the checklist as a short workshop rather than a form. Where the client cannot answer, record the gap as an assumption in the RFQ so every supplier prices the same assumption. Unrecorded assumptions are what turn a comparison table into guesswork.
FAQ
Issue with a stated assumed water profile and require suppliers to list which items are sensitive to it. That keeps the bid comparable and creates a defined re-pricing trigger once the analysis arrives.
Sharing a budget band usually improves proposal relevance for turnkey scopes; for single equipment packages it tends to compress offers toward the number. Decide per package and apply the same choice to every bidder.
Related
Hand a client project to the concierge
You keep the client and the technical mandate. FishMatch Group runs the private supplier outreach and returns normalised offers.
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