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Procurement Workspace

What it does​

The Procurement Workspace turns a hardware design into purchasable parts. For each buying decision you create a workspace, search the web and electronics part catalogs for candidate parts/suppliers, capture quotes, let the AI compare the options Pugh-style, and commit a sourcing decision that pushes to your BOM. It is an AI-assisted procurement notebook — search → curate → decide → buy — not an auto-scraping marketplace.

Why it matters​

Sourcing is where a design meets reality: the right part at the wrong price, lead time, or supplier sinks a build. Engineers normally juggle this across spreadsheets, distributor tabs, WhatsApp chats with suppliers, and email RFQs. The Procurement Workspace keeps the whole loop — candidates, quotes, supplier conversations, internal reviews, the comparison, and the decision — in one place, grounded in the same hierarchy node that holds the design's requirements and cost target.

How it works​

  1. Link to a hierarchy node so the AI compare grounds scoring in that node's down-allocated cost target, requirements, and region preference (a standalone workspace works too, just ungrounded).
  2. Search — type a part number for the electronics catalog (Nexar/Octopart, cache-first to protect a metered quota), or a plain-English description with AI web lookup to pull unverified web leads. A per-class catalog toggle avoids wasting catalog lookups on mechanical parts.
  3. Curate — reject junk (with reasons), shortlist real options, and record investigated quotes (price, currency, MOQ, lead time, price basis, supplier location). Run supplier-facing email/WhatsApp conversations and internal teammate reviews on clearly separated lanes.
  4. Compare — a Pugh-style AI matrix scores the non-rejected candidates on weighted criteria (price, spec-fit, lead time, supplier trust, local supplier). Numeric criteria are scored deterministically from the real values, with price normalized for GST basis and currency so quotes compare like-for-like; a spec-fit gate stops a cheap-but-wrong part from winning.
  5. Decide — pick the winner (or override with a rationale), draft an RFQ email/WhatsApp, and commit. The decision produces a push-to-BOM payload (part, supplier, location, unit cost, basis, MOQ, lead).

Key capabilities​

  • Node-grounded AI compare — scoring anchored to your hierarchy's cost target and requirements.
  • Cache-first catalog + web search — Nexar/Octopart part lookups with quota discipline, plus opt-in web leads for non-electronics parts.
  • Quote capture with price basis — ex-works / landed / MRP-incl-GST / ex-GST, so mixed-basis quotes are comparable.
  • Two-lane communication — a supplier-facing conversation (email + WhatsApp) kept visually distinct from an internal team thread the supplier never sees.
  • Evidence + annotation — attach supplier quotes, part photos and datasheet snippets, and box/pin specific regions.
  • Push-to-BOM — a committed decision flows into the BOM with full sourcing provenance.

Procurement is a shared platform tool: it lives under your System Hierarchy nodes, supports revisions and team review like the other tools, and pairs naturally with the BOM Completion tool.