From a photograph
Photograph an existing or competitor panel. The AI identifies the devices, ratings and counts it can see and drafts the component list.
From a drawing
Upload a single-line diagram or GA drawing and extract the component schedule, with symbol detection on the canvas in Panel Studio.
From a description
Type what the customer asked for in ordinary language — a 400A TPN distribution board with eight outgoings — and get a starting BOM.
Costed against your prices
Every line is matched to your catalogue and supplier price lists, so the total is what the panel actually costs you to build.
Reusable templates
Save recurring panel types as templates and generate only the parts that differ on the next enquiry.
Straight into a quotation
Apply margins and convert the BOM into a customer-ready quotation without retyping a single line item.
Why estimating is the bottleneck in a panel shop
In most panel manufacturing businesses the constraint is not the workshop — it is the one or two people who can read a drawing and produce a reliable bill of material. Every enquiry queues behind them. When they are busy, quotations go out late, and a quotation that arrives a week after the customer asked has already lost to whoever answered first.
The work itself is repetitive rather than difficult: reading the schedule, listing devices, finding current prices, adding wire, terminals and hardware, applying margin. It rewards patience, not judgement, and it is precisely the sort of task a machine should do first and a human should check.
Three ways to generate a bill of material
Enquiries do not arrive in one format. Some customers send a proper drawing, some send a photograph of a board they want copied, and plenty just describe what they need over the phone or on WhatsApp. Zaptiz accepts all three.
- Photo — the Panel Photo Analyzer reads the devices visible in an image of an assembled panel and drafts the list, including a budget-tier option that swaps in an equivalent product from a different brand.
- Drawing — upload a PDF or CAD file to the Drawing Manager, or open it in Panel Studio to measure, count and trace with AI symbol detection feeding the component list.
- Specification — describe the panel in plain English and the AI proposes a component list based on ratings, configuration and your usual practice.
Priced from your catalogue, not a generic database
A BOM is only useful if the numbers are yours. Each generated line is matched against your product catalogue and your supplier price lists, so the cost reflects your actual buying terms rather than list prices you never pay.
Keeping those price lists current is its own chore, so Zaptiz imports them by OCR: upload the PDF or photograph of a distributor's price list and the items are read, matched to your products and updated in bulk. Where a component genuinely has no price on file, the line is flagged, and you are warned before any document with a zero-priced line is printed or emailed.
A draft, never an automatic decision
The AI produces a draft. An estimator opens it, corrects anything it misread, adds the things a photograph cannot show — internal wiring, gland plates, the labour allowance — and approves it. Nothing reaches a customer or a supplier without that step.
That boundary is deliberate. The value is in removing the hour of transcription, not in removing the person who knows that this particular customer always wants a spare way and a lockable door.
From bill of material to quotation to purchase order
The BOM is not a dead end. Apply your margins and it becomes a quotation; win the job and the quotation becomes a sales order; the sales order tells the procurement agent which components you are short of and drafts the purchase requisitions to cover them; the same component list becomes the kit issued to the shop floor.
Because every stage reads the same underlying list, the panel that gets built is the panel that was quoted — which is the actual defence against the margin quietly disappearing between the estimate and the invoice.
Frequently asked questions
What is a BOM in electrical panel manufacturing?
A bill of material (BOM) is the itemised list of every component that goes into a panel — breakers, contactors, relays, meters, busbar, terminals, wire, the enclosure and the hardware — with quantities, part numbers and prices. It is the foundation of the quotation, the purchase order and the production kit, so an error in the BOM becomes an error in all three.
How accurate is a BOM generated from a photo?
Accurate enough to quote from after a quick review, which is the point. The AI identifies the visible devices, their ratings and their counts, and matches them against your product catalogue and price lists. You always see the result as an editable draft — nothing is ordered or sent to a customer without a human confirming it.
Can it read my CAD drawings?
Yes. Upload a single-line diagram, a general arrangement drawing or a PDF and Zaptiz extracts the schedule of components. Panel Studio takes this further: you can measure, count and trace directly on the drawing, with AI symbol detection proposing the component list, which is far faster than counting symbols by hand.
Does it use my own prices or generic ones?
Your own. The generated BOM is matched against your product catalogue and supplier price lists, so the costing reflects what you actually pay. Where a component has no price on file, it is flagged rather than silently guessed, and there is a warning before you print or email a document that still contains a zero-priced line.
What if the panel is a variation of one we have built before?
Start from a panel template or a previous BOM and change what differs. Most panel shops build families of similar boards, so templates plus AI generation for the new parts is usually faster than either approach alone.
How long does it take compared with doing it manually?
Manual listing of a mid-size distribution board typically takes an estimator one to three hours, plus more time to price it. Generating the draft takes a couple of minutes, and reviewing it takes a few more. The saving is largest on repeat enquiries that never got quoted because nobody had time.