--- title: "AI-Native Ship Chandler RFQ Automation Case Study | Agility AI" url: https://agilitytech.ai/case-studies/ship-chandler-rfq description: "Case study: AI RFQ automation for a ship chandler: 30-minute quote turnaround, $100K+ labour recovered, and zero pricing errors with automated catalogue matching." publisher: Agility (agilitytech.ai) --- Maritime # AI-Native Ship Chandler RFQ Automation Eliminating 2 to 3 day manual quoting cycles for ship chandlers through AI-powered RFQ email parsing, automated catalogue item-code matching, and margin-protected quote generation in under 30 minutes. 30 Min Quote Turnaround Reduced from 2 to 3 days per RFQ $100K+ Annual Labor Recovered Per maritime distributor deployment Zero Pricing Errors Since go-live across all processed RFQs 847+ Line Items Processed accurately in a single RFQ ## Project Overview ### Industry Maritime ### Region Caribbean ### Project Size Multi-Distributor Deployment ### Time Frame 1 Week Average Deployment Per Client ### Technology Stack AI Email Parsing Engine Catalogue Item-Code Matching Vendor Catalogue Integration Margin Protection Logic Automated Quote Generation ## The Challenge ### Manual Excel-Based Maritime Quoting Maritime distributors and ship chandlers processing RFQs containing hundreds of line items relied entirely on manual Excel-based workflows: each RFQ taking 2 to 3 days to quote with frequent pricing errors, unprotected margins, and no standardized catalogue item-code matching. Customer emails arrived in completely inconsistent formats with abbreviations, mixed item descriptions, and non-standard product references. The speed of quote delivery directly determined whether business was won or lost to competitors, and the manual process was consuming the entire operational capacity of the team. ## Transformational Results ### Fully Automated Maritime Quoting Platform We replaced the 2 to 3 day manual quoting process with a fully automated end-to-end platform: AI parses incoming RFQ emails regardless of format, matches line items to the chandler's catalogue item codes, pulls live vendor pricing, applies mandatory margin protection, and generates a professional formatted quote in under 30 minutes with zero human intervention. Each deployment takes one week. Each deployment recovers $100K+ in annual labor. Zero pricing errors since go-live across all client deployments. #### Speed and Accuracy Reduced quote turnaround from 2 to 3 days to under 30 minutes through complete end-to-end workflow automation Eliminated all pricing errors since go-live through automated margin protection checks on every line item Processed 847+ line items in a single RFQ without performance degradation or manual review requirement #### Commercial Impact Recovered $100K+ in annual labor costs per maritime distributor through eliminated manual quoting overhead Deployed in an average of 1 week per client with minimal configuration requirements Delivered zero human intervention in the complete pricing workflow from email receipt to quote delivery ## Challenges & Solutions ### Completely Inconsistent RFQ Formats #### Problem Ship chandler RFQs arrive in completely inconsistent formats, different layouts, abbreviations, languages, and product naming conventions, making any rules-based extraction fail systematically. #### Solution Built an AI email parsing engine capable of extracting and normalizing line items regardless of input format, handling messy and abbreviated maritime product descriptions without any manual preprocessing step. #### Impact Automated extraction across all customer RFQ formats with zero manual preparation required ### Item-Code Matching at Scale #### Problem Maritime products must be matched to catalogue item codes for lookup and pricing, manual matching across hundreds of line items per RFQ was slow, error-prone, and a bottleneck to quoting speed. #### Solution Built the client catalogue and its item codes directly into the parsing pipeline, enabling automated code matching at the point of item identification rather than as a separate manual downstream step. #### Impact Accurate catalogue item-code matching across 847+ line items with zero manual intervention ### Unprotected Pricing Margins #### Problem Manual quoting resulted in frequent pricing errors and margin erosion, items were regularly quoted below acceptable margins with no systematic check in place before quotes left the business. #### Solution Built automated margin protection into the quote generation engine as a mandatory gate, no quote can be produced with below-threshold margins, with exceptions flagged for review before delivery. #### Impact Zero pricing errors since go-live across all processed RFQs ### 2 to 3 Day Turnaround Losing Business to Competitors #### Problem In maritime supply, slow quote response directly loses business, 2 to 3 day turnaround was uncompetitive and consumed the entire capacity of the quoting team for a single vessel's requirements. #### Solution Automated the complete workflow from email receipt through parsing, catalogue matching, pricing, margin validation, and formatted quote generation. Delivering the complete quote in under 30 minutes with no manual steps. #### Impact Quote turnaround reduced from 2 to 3 days to under 30 minutes, recovering $100K+ annually per deployment ## Ready to Automate Your Maritime Quoting? Contact our automation specialists to discover how AI-powered RFQ processing can eliminate manual quoting cycles and recover significant labor costs for your maritime business. [Get Started Today](https://agilitytech.ai/contact)