Start from the last lost request
Ask sales what they had to chase on the last three inquiries: missing ship-to, no quantity, a photo of a competitor's spec. Those gaps become required fields or file uploads.
A consumer 'how can we help' box trains the wrong visitor. Trade buyers will skip a form that looks like a newsletter signup. They will complete one that looks like a job ticket.
Fields that belong on a manufacturing form
Project type or product family, quantity or room count, ship-to region, target date, drawings if they exist, and how they heard of you only if you will actually read it. Phone is useful when the desk still calls.
Do not ask for a budget number if you will not use it to qualify. Optional fields that nobody maps into the CRM are decoration.
Where the record goes
Email is enough when volume is low and one person owns the inbox. A panel or CRM handoff belongs in scope when several people work the queue or when the public catalogue is edited in the same system.
WhatsApp can carry a prefilled ticket if that is already how the desk replies. A chatbot that cannot create the same record is a second inbox, not automation.
Search still needs the product pages
A perfect form on a homepage that never names the product family will not get the visitor. Catalogue URLs and the form work as a pair. The manufacturing industry page and the manufacturing website article cover that pair.
When you brief us, send the last three real inquiries (scrubbed) and where they should have landed. That is enough to draft the field list.