Send a drawing. An engineer reads it.

A 3D model in STEP, IGES, Parasolid or native SolidWorks, plus a dimensioned PDF drawing wherever one exists. Send both if you have both: the model tells us how to cut the part, but only the drawing tells us which of the dimensions on it actually matter, and a quote built on a model alone has to assume every feature is critical, which makes it expensive. If you work model-based with PMI embedded in the model, say so and we will read the annotations from there instead. Tell us four things in the message and you will get a firmer number faster: the quantity, including whether this is a one-off or the first of a call-off; the material and any heat treatment or finish the drawing specifies; the date you need the parts on your shelf, which is not the same as the date you would like them to ship; and whether the job needs an AS9102 first-article report, because that is priced separately from £420 and it changes the inspection plan rather than being added at the end. If you have none of that — a photograph of a broken part on a bench, a hand sketch on squared paper, a microfilm drawing from 1974 — send it anyway. We have quoted from all three this year. Everything that arrives is confidential from the moment it lands, we will sign your NDA if your process requires one, and we do not require you to sign ours.

Unit 4, Parkwood Works, Hollowgate, Sheffield S3 8QT. About ten minutes from junction 34 of the M1 and a fifteen-minute walk from Sheffield station, which is why customers from the south tend to come by train and be back the same afternoon. There are two visitor spaces in the yard, marked, and there is safety footwear in the office in most sizes — the route from the office to the shop floor is a designated area and we will not walk you round it in trainers. Goods-in is the roller shutter on the left of the yard, not the office door, and the hours are Monday to Thursday 07:00 to 17:30 and Friday 07:00 to 13:00. A booked delivery outside those hours can be arranged if you ring ahead; an unbooked one at 16:00 on a Friday will find the yard locked. If you are sending free-issue material, mark it with the part number and your order number and email Priya so it is expected — unmarked stock arriving on a pallet is the single most common cause of a job sitting still for a week. We are happy to be audited, we would genuinely rather you came and looked than took our word for any of this, and the shop floor, the CMM room and the calibration records are all open to a customer with reasonable notice.