A few days ago, I wrote about the basics of ISO 9001 -- both the standard and the certification/registration process. I got some comments on Linkedin about how useless ISO 9001 is. It is useless indeed in many manufacturing facilities I have visited, and the key reasons are: Poor implementation (because managers want to take shortcuts), combined with Inadequate auditing (lack of understanding of processes and of what is important, and lax enforcement of the standard by many registrar … [Read more...]
Must-know Basics of Quality Assurance in China & Vietnam for Buyers
Many new or inexperienced importers who are outsourcing their production to suppliers in China (or wider Asia such as Vietnam) for the first time go into the process almost blind. They're later hit with crippling issues that can make the process a costly nightmare. Why? Because they were not aware of how to implement strong quality assurance in China/Vietnam and fell into some fairly common traps that can catch out 'green' importers. It doesn't need to be this way though. Read on to get … [Read more...]
Understanding Product QC Inspections: What Is in a Man-Day?
A conversation earlier today made me realize that some buyers who haven’t spent much time in Chinese factories have some common misconceptions. For example, “Chinese production operators are forced to work 12 hours a day, in a case of modern slavery”, “all metal factories do all the steps from casting/forging to surface treatments and all the way to assembly and packing”, and so on. Another misconception is that a good inspector will spend 8-10 hours working at the factory. This is what I … [Read more...]
Basics about ISO 9001: The Standard and the Certification Process
How many of your suppliers claim to be ISO 9001 certified? Is it true? And, to start with, what does it mean? I want to shed some light on this topic. The purpose of the ISO 9001 standard is to "help businesses and organizations to be more efficient and improve customer satisfaction". How does it do that? First, what is a Quality Management System (QMS)? Basically, a QMS is what a company puts in place to ensure it meets its customers' requirements. Among others, it includes: … [Read more...]
9 Things Only a Large Company Can Obtain in China/Vietnam
I see some good advice, published in Linkedin or elsewhere, aimed at importers sourcing products from China, Vietnam, or other low-cost Asian countries. A lot of this advice is sound. However, I noticed that a good chunk is NOT applicable to companies buying under 20 million USD a year -- and, sometimes, not under 1 billion USD a year. I made a list of 9 things large importers can get, but small companies usually can't negotiate. (Of course there are many exceptions, but they remain … [Read more...]
Setting Up a New Factory in China: from Idea to Operation
We have followed the needs of some clients and set up our own assembly center in South China. I took some notes about the 6 phases we have followed, to get from idea to operation. But first, for those curious of what a factory looks like just a few days after starting operations, I shot this video. As you can see, it is messy. It will look more orderly in a few weeks. And processes should all be nicely in control in 2-3 months. As I mentioned above, here are the 6 phases we have … [Read more...]
How To Check a Chinese Supplier & Confirm They Fit Your Needs
Last month I wrote an article (How To Get a List of “Good Chinese Factories”?) and one my points was: What is a good supplier to one company is a bad supplier to another company. In that article, I gave an example of a famous contract manufacturer in Apple's supply chain. Doing great work for Apple, but a terrible job for some other customers. Let's take another example: A typical factory that makes apparel for Walmart tends to be good at making large volumes in a short time period, … [Read more...]
The Different Types Of Sampling Plans For QC Inspections
1. What is a sampling plan? A sampling plan allows an auditor or a researcher to study a group (e.g. a batch of products, a segment of the population) by observing only a part of that group, and to reach conclusions with a pre-defined level of certainty. In this article I cover these cases in depth (hit the links below to skip to the relevant section): The buyer wants to follow the most common plan to inspect a supplier's batch of products The manufacturer implements a continuous … [Read more...]
Understanding the Basics about Food GMP
Several clients asked precise questions recently about food GMPs. I asked Annie, our food production safety specialist, to clarify some key topics. Q: What are food GMPs? Food GMPs are the industry-specific 'good manufacturing practices' for food products. These practices are the fundamental operational requirements necessary to enable a food business to produce safe food. They are about the methods, equipment, facilities, and controls for producing safe and wholesome food. They are an … [Read more...]
Transitioning to Supplier Self Inspections: Go Stage by Stage
It seems nearly every major retailer has given some thought to letting their suppliers check quality themselves. I wrote about it in Why Supplier Self-Inspections Are Getting More Popular in China. The obvious benefit is cutting costs. No need to send someone to the factory before every shipment. Another benefit is, when this works well, to stop "baby-sitting" suppliers and to force them to take responsibility for important matters such as product quality... And, hopefully, incentivize … [Read more...]
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