Let's say you are looking for a supplier in China to make your innovative product. You know that traditional sourcing agents are not the solution -- they simply don't have the ability to assist you with design reviews, engineering work, certifications, and so on. And you can't justify setting up a company in China and hiring local staff -- that's a lot of extra expense. So, the choice often ends up being between a trading company (which will be your supplier, even though they don't do … [Read more...]
What Certifications are Necessary for a Given Product & Country?
If you are buying products from China, you probably asked the following questions: What type of certification is needed? How to be compliant? What is mandatory and what is only advised? Getting the right information immediately is difficult. I just discovered an easy-to-navigate and very useful website from UL: https://ul-certification.com The process is simple: Select the geographical area(s) Select the product category Click on a mark (e.g. UL Listing, CE...) Read … [Read more...]
Making Components’ Shipment and Presentation Easier (Before Assembly)
This article was written by Kevin Howard, a packaging engineer and owner of Packnomics. A few days ago, we wrote about Design for Distribution. In this article, let's focus on the design of the components of a product, and the impact it has on shipment from the component suppliers to the assembler. Design for Distribution should also apply to components that are inbound to the Contract Manufacturer sites. I have worked on many components, where I show the product engineer how to add … [Read more...]
Benefits of ISO 9001 for a Chinese manufacturing organization
I wrote recently about ISO 9001: What are the standard and the certification process 10 ways it can get poorly implemented in a factory To summarize my view on this topic: It is a good standard, keeping in mind that it was designed to apply to all sorts of organizations Many companies did not implement it the wrong way, as they took shortcuts and they were only interested in the 'marketing impact' of a certification The real culprit is the way registrar bodies audit and … [Read more...]
Design for Distribution: What Hardware Startups Need To Know
I had an interesting conversation about Design for Distribution with Kevin Howard, a packaging engineer and owner of Packnomics. (Kevin wrote before about packaging optimization on this blog.) What is Design for Distribution? Design for Distribution is the analysis of the impact of the product design on logistics costs, and the choice of appropriate laboratory testing methods in order to avoid both high damage rates and excessive logistics costs. If your company plans to produce relatively … [Read more...]
Design Reviews on New Electronic Hardware Products – Q&A with an Expert
I had the chance to ask a few questions to John Teel, founder and lead engineer at Predictable Designs about design reviews on new electronic hardware products. He helps companies who are designing and developing electronic hardware products. If you are not sure where to start, you can grab his 'cheat sheet' (15 steps for developing your electronic product). … [Read more...]
Factory Audit Tips: 10 Signs of a Bad ISO 9001 Implementation
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...]
How a Factory Can (and Should) Go Beyond ISO 9001
I wrote a few articles about ISO 9001 recently: The standard itself pushes companies in the right direction, but the auditing & certification process has many flaws: Basics about ISO 9001: The Standard and the Certification Process The standard pushes manufacturers to think in terms of systems and processes, among other benefits: Benefits of ISO 9001 for a Chinese manufacturing organization Many factories have been certified, but implementation was really bad: Factory Audit Tips: … [Read more...]