Explore how to comply with CE and UKCA regulations, the markings of which indicate that your product complies with the safety requirements of the EU and Great Britain and can be legally sold in these markets. No matter where your … [Read more...]
Archives for March 2023
Benefits of Product Design Optimization (Taguchi Method)
I wrote extensively about ways to proactively improve a product's design, in order to avoid quality, reliability, and safety issues. It involves reliability engineering, fail safe designs, and a variety of other objectives to take into … [Read more...]
9 Key Quality Management Challenges in China
Managing quality in China is tough when you outsource production to a manufacturer (your 'supplier'). There are a number of quality management challenges to be aware of that can trip up buyers and we're sharing 9 key ones here. Thanks to … [Read more...]
Why the AQL Inspection System Is Still So Widespread
In the 1930s, some smart statisticians at Bell Labs worked on an amazing amount of manual calculations to suggest sampling plans for product quality inspections. Over time, it became the topic of MIL STD standards and one of those plans … [Read more...]
The Design for Reliability Process for Launching Reliable Products
What is the design for reliability process that importers can follow to make sure that their products don't fail once in use by customers, even if it's some time after the sale date? Since you need products to last at least the length of … [Read more...]
Breaking news! China opens its borders to all foreign travellers!
We discuss the positive news that as of Wednesday, March 15th 2023, China is reopening its borders to all foreign travellers! Due to Covid China was pretty inaccessible to most travellers since March 2020, so after 3 years we finally … [Read more...]
A Guide… To Guiding! How To Be Effective As A Quality Audit Guide? (with special focus on IATF 16949)
Guest post by Brad Pritts - a followup to How To Prepare For A Factory Audit? Note from Renaud: Let's say your factory is undergoing a quality audit requested by your customer. The auditor will arrive and you are advised to have a … [Read more...]
What is the ISO 37301 (Compliance Management Systems) standard?
Let's look into what the ISO 37301 compliance management systems standard is. This standard enables organizations and businesses to put in place an effective compliance management system where senior management is accountable, and … [Read more...]
How To Prepare For A Factory Audit?
From time to time, someone asks me for advice on how to prepare for a factory audit. Since we have run an auditing service for years, we have a few ideas about this. I collected some of my usual advice in this article*. *(I am assuming … [Read more...]
Assembly Fixtures: A Valuable Productivity and Quality Tool
Assembly fixtures are very important tools used in the factory to provide better quality, faster, and cheaper production. Almost every importer will like the sound of those benefits! Checking fixtures are similar, but they … [Read more...]