Basalt Engineering’s story
The Basalt Uzbekistan group was founded in 2015 around the Osmonsoy basalt quarry in the Forish district of the Jizzakh region. It runs the full cycle, from mining the rock to producing finished materials: basalt rebar, geogrids, fabric, continuous fiber, rock wool and pipes. The group supplies customers in Uzbekistan and other countries and holds ISO 9001, 14001 and 45001 certification for quality, environmental and occupational health and safety management.
Basalt Engineering Corp works alongside it, designing and building production systems for basalt materials such as rock wool and continuous fiber. Between the materials and the engineering, the business answers a wide range of technical requests.
It is a business built on technical knowledge. Basalt products are chosen for their strength and resistance to corrosion and heat, and buyers want to know exactly which product, in which size and quantity, fits their project. Requests to quote come in a steady stream, from single products to combinations of several, and each one needs a prompt and accurate answer.
RFQs piling up
With that many product lines, every request for quote was a small project: read it, match the items, look up prices, write it up. A buyer might ask for several products at once, in specific sizes and quantities, and each line had to be matched to the right item before it could be priced.
When requests came in faster than the team could handle them, the work became overwhelming. Requests waited in inboxes while earlier ones were still being worked through, and the time between a buyer asking and the company answering grew longer.
In construction materials, that delay matters. A buyer comparing suppliers will often go with the one who answers first, and a slow quote can lose a deal before the price is even seen.
It also made the team’s workload unpredictable. A quiet week could be followed by a wave of requests, and the backlog from one wave was often still being cleared when the next one arrived.
The team was not short of expertise. It was short of time, and the volume of routine work around each request was using up what time it had.
Time spent on the wrong work
Most of the effort in an RFQ went into the mechanical part: reading, matching and typing. The judgement that only the team can provide, such as checking a price, choosing the right product or adding a note for the buyer, got squeezed into whatever time was left.
That is the wrong way round. Skilled people were spending their days on work a system could do, and had less time for the parts of the job that need their experience.
It also left little room to follow up. With the next request already waiting, there was rarely time to check back with a buyer after a quote had gone out, even when a short conversation might have won the order.
The PromptLab moment
Basalt Engineering needed to take the volume off its team without taking the team out of the loop. PromptLab is built for industrial suppliers, with quotes built from the company’s own products and price lists, and AI that takes on the repetitive work around them while people review the result.
The RFQ work that had piled up moved to PromptLab, and the team’s time went back to checking and sending quotes. Control was the condition. Every quote that leaves Basalt Engineering is checked by a person, and the system had to fit that rule rather than work around it.
It also had to fit the way the team already worked. Requests still arrive from buyers in the usual way, and the team still decides what goes out. What changed is how much of the work in between the team has to do by hand.
“PromptLab handles work that used to overwhelm our team. Our RFQ cycles dropped by more than half.”
How Basalt Engineering uses PromptLab
Basalt Engineering uses PromptLab to handle its requests for quote from arrival to answer. The change shows in three ways. Each one follows from the same change: the routine part of the work moved to the system, and the team kept the part that needs its judgement.
RFQ work in PromptLab
PromptLab handles the RFQ work that used to overwhelm the team. People review the result before it goes out, so the speed comes without giving up control over what the buyer receives.
Quotes are built from the company’s own products and price lists, with unit cost beside unit price on every line, and linked to the buyer’s deal. Each request has a record, and its status shows whether it is a draft, pending or approved.
The request, the quote and the conversation around them sit together on the buyer’s account. Anyone picking up the request can see what was asked, what was offered and what happens next. Products and prices come from the catalogue rather than from memory or an old quote, so the figures start from the right place and the review focuses on what really needs a person’s judgement.
Shorter RFQ cycles
From request to quote, an RFQ now takes less than half as long as it did before. Buyers get answers sooner, while their interest is still fresh.
Because each quote sits on the deal, the team can see which requests are answered and which are still open. Nothing waits in an inbox without someone knowing about it.
Quote documents are produced from the record, so there is no separate step of copying figures into a template. When a quote is approved and the buyer accepts, the sales order can be raised from the same data.
Shorter cycles also mean less work in progress. With fewer requests waiting at any one time, it is easier to keep track of each one and less likely that any is forgotten.
Time back for the team
With the volume no longer overwhelming, the team can give each request the attention it needs. Time that went into reading and retyping now goes into checking prices, choosing the right product and talking to buyers.
That shift is the real gain. The team’s expertise in basalt materials is spent where it makes a difference to the buyer, not on the mechanics of preparing a document.
It also makes room for the follow-up that used to be squeezed out. With quotes going out faster, the team has time to check back with buyers and answer their questions before they decide.
Ready for more requests
The group’s range of basalt products and its work in other countries bring a steady flow of technical requests. With RFQ work in PromptLab, more requests no longer mean a heavier load on the same people.
Faster answers win more conversations, and more conversations bring more requests. Basalt Engineering now has a process that can keep up with both.
The same records also show the team where its work goes. Reports on quotes and deals can show which products are requested most and which requests turn into orders, helping the team decide where to focus.
