Display-case procurement fails in patterns. The same seven mistakes account for most of the disputes, delays, and quiet disappointments in institutional casework — and every one of them is a specification problem, which means every one is preventable at the RFQ. Here they are, each with its fix, so the list reads back as a checklist.
1. Writing an adjective where a grade belongs
The RFQ says “highest quality, flawless finish” — or the classic, “museum quality” — and three bidders price three different guesses. One prices what those words cost to actually attempt everywhere, one prices what they usually mean, one prices winning the bid. The numbers come back incomparable, and the cheapest guess often wins the work its spec never described.
The fix: specify in measurable terms. Our published Quality Standards define three finish grades by Inspection Distance — the distance at which cosmetic characteristics may become visible under normal viewing conditions: Production Finish at approximately 4 feet, Display Finish at approximately 2 feet, Museum Archival Finish at approximately 1 foot. Name the grade, and every bidder prices the same object.
2. Specifying the top grade on every surface
The opposite failure: Museum Archival everywhere, including the back panel against the wall and the base skirt nobody has knelt to inspect since the building opened. Finishing effort scales steeply with grade, and grade-everywhere multiplies it across surfaces without viewers.
The fix: grade by sightline. Front and top surfaces where visitors lean in take the top grade; rear and base surfaces a grade down. The budget this releases is not savings so much as reallocation — it buys attention back for the surfaces people actually put their faces near.
3. Dimensioning the case before the object is dressed
The case was sized from the object. Then the object acquired a mount, the mount acquired a base plate, the label needed floor space inside the footprint — and the case, fabricated exactly to its drawing, is now too small for the exhibit that goes in it. The fabricator built the spec; the spec was written too early.
The fix: case dimensions follow the dressed object — object plus mount plus base plus interior interpretives — with clearances stated explicitly on the drawing. If mount design is still in motion, say so and hold the case order; a held order is cheaper than a rebuilt case.
4. No written access plan
Who opens this case? How often, and with what tools? Unanswered, the question defaults to whatever the fabricator assumes — and a five-sided bonnet that takes two art handlers to lift is a very different answer from a hinged panel with a lock, or a removable side that one registrar manages alone during a rotation.
The fix: choose the access scheme deliberately — full bonnet lift, hinged door, removable panel — and write the rotation frequency into the RFQ. Access changes the fabrication approach (where joints land, what hardware is bonded in, how the base engages), so it must be decided before fabrication, not discovered at the first rotation.
5. Treating the exhibition open date as the ship date
The opening is October 12, so the case is due October 12 — except install comes first, and mount fitting, and condition reporting, and the conservator’s schedule, and the two weeks the gallery is dark for lighting focus. Casework that arrives at the opening arrives late.
The fix: back-plan the real ship date from the install calendar, then decide how hard that date is. In the terms of our Production Scheduling standard: Production Schedule work is completed in sequence with other scheduled work and carries no guaranteed ship date; Accelerated Production improves timing when capacity allows, still without a guarantee; Reserved Production allocates dedicated capacity to guarantee a specific ship date. An exhibition that cannot move its opening is precisely what Reserved Production exists for — put the guarantee on the ship date the install schedule actually requires.
6. Skipping the light conversation because “it’s indoors”
Glazing gets ordered as generic clear because the gallery has no windows — and the lighting designer’s track heads, the atrium spill from the next room, and the loan agreement’s lux conditions were never part of the material decision. For light-sensitive objects, the glazing spec and the lighting policy are one conversation, and the institution’s conservators own it.
The fix: before glazing is ordered, run the lighting conversation — what the objects are, what the loan or collection policy requires, and whether UV-filtering material belongs in this case’s spec. The fabricator’s role is executing the material decision precisely and documenting what was supplied; deciding what the objects need is conservation’s call, made with data sheets in hand.
7. Accepting delivery without an inspection protocol
The case arrives, everyone is busy, someone signs. Three weeks later, at install, under focused lighting, a joint or a surface looks wrong to somebody — and now it is a dispute, complicated by three weeks of handling nobody can account for.
The fix: write the acceptance protocol into the PO alongside the grades: on arrival, inspect each specified surface at its named Inspection Distance against its named grade, under normal viewing conditions. With grades specified per surface (mistake 1) and by sightline (mistake 2), acceptance takes minutes and produces a decision instead of an argument — the case either meets the distance-and-grade spec it was built to, or it measurably doesn’t.
The checklist, read forward
Run the seven in reverse as an RFQ template and they become: named grades per surface · grades assigned by sightline · dimensions from the dressed object with stated clearances · a written access plan with rotation frequency · a back-planned ship date with the scheduling tier chosen deliberately · the lighting/glazing conversation held with conservation · an arrival inspection protocol citing the standard. Seven lines of specification, most of a procurement’s risk retired. When the next case is taking shape, bring the checklist and the install calendar — the earlier both arrive, the more of this list is simply designed out.
