Request
for Proposal (RFP) and Request for Quotation (RFQ) are not
interchangeable terms. In recent weeks though I’ve seen them used
as if there was no difference, so I thought it might be useful to
clarify.
Now
I’m no lawyer, and these terms have specific legal meanings, so
rather than have you sue me because I didn’t get this quite right,
I’m going to refer you to a couple of authoritative sources.
First
off, let’s look at what UC Santa Cruze say.
http://cruzbuy.ucsc.edu/howto/quotes&bids.html.
Summarizing, you use an RFP when you want to “generate a spectrum
of alternative responses”.
Then
Humbolt State university - http://www.humboldt.edu/its/node/1633
- makes it clearer still. They say, “A Request for Proposal (RFP)
is used when you know you have a problem but don’t know how you
want to solve it.” In contrast, “A Request for Quote (RFQ) is
commonly used when you know what you want but need information on how
vendors would meet your requirements and/or how much it will cost.”
Applying
these guidelines to our world, if you know what you want and just
need to know the price, (if you’re buying 25mm lenses, for
example,) send an RFQ. But if you want ideas for how best to inspect
the product you make, send an RFP to a number of integrators.
I hope
that clarifies things, and I hope I never see RFP and RFQ used
interchangeably again.
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