[PURCHASING] Placing a Request For Quote

As explained, the process in a game starts with a request for quote (RFQ) sent to a customer. In a request for quote, one has to specify the earliest delivery date, the latest delivery date, the preferred amount or number of products, and the suppliers to send the RFQ to. By default, the suppliers are sorted on distance with the closest supplier on top. For each supplier, a small description of the transportation characteristics is given. "TIME[h]:24" refers to the hours needed for shipping the products to you, "COSTS = 200 + COSTS / UNIT = 3" indicates that the fixed costs for a shipment to you are 200.0 plus an additional fee of 3 per unit you order. In case you order 100 products, your transportation costs will be 200 + (100 * 3) = 500.

When a player has specified all the required data, pressing the button "send RFQ" is all it takes to send the RFQ to the selected suppliers. After pressing this button, the screen is automatically cleared. Requests for quote which are sent, but for which no quotes have been received yet, will appear at the top of the panel. It is possible, but unlikely, that no quotes will be received for an RFQ. If this happens, an actor has to reconsider the specifications for that quote.

The product is selected by clicking in the correct cell of the overview screen. The product name is visible in the blue top bar of the RFQ submission screen. The earliest and latest delivery dates can be changed with the 'spinners' next to the day, month and year fields. The amount or number of products can be changed with the spinner or by typing in the amount. The suppliers are sorted by distance; you will find the closest suppliers at the top of the list. Every supplier is indicated with its name, location, transportation time in hours, and average transportation price per product unit, to give you an indication of the transportation cost, when you would source from that particular supplier.

In the top list, you can see the submitted RFQs for which no quote has yet been received yet. The moment a quote comes in, the entry is moved to the next row as a 'submitted quote'.

On the right you see the average unit price, without transportation costs, for the distributors for all the products in the game. For each region, these prices are collected and published on a weekly basis. They give an indication of the price you may want to pay for your products.