EAU

EAU is the number on the RFQ most likely to be wrong, and the quote is built on it anyway. Setup amortisation, tooling amortisation, material buy quantities, even which machine the job belongs on, all divide by the annual volume, so a part quoted at 1,200,000 pieces a year carries a completely different cost structure than the same part at 60,000. When the released reality comes in at half the promised EAU, every one of those divisions was too generous, and the margin quietly absorbs the difference.

The argument to be ready for is the inflated EAU. Buyers know that volume buys price, and an optimistic annual figure is the cheapest negotiating tool they own. The protection is structural rather than suspicious. Quote with a price break table so the price is explicitly a function of quantity, tie tooling amortisation to a stated volume with a true-up clause, and let the quote say plainly what happens if the program releases at 40 percent. A quote built that way survives the shortfall. A single price against a single hopeful number does not.

EAU also frames the bid decision itself. Whether the floor should even price the request is a question about seconds of capacity at the bottleneck work center across that annual volume, which is why a serious bid review reads the EAU before anyone reads the print. The commercial arithmetic of answering more of the requests that carry real volume is laid out in how to cut RFQ response time from 10 days to 1, and it starts with taking the stated volume seriously enough to check it.