Don't miss a post

This article is a wrap-up of the series of articles that we have published over the past few months, on the topic of the verification & qualification of Chinese suppliers. Here is the list of articles: Background Checks Questions to Ask Before a Visit Evaluating Engineering Capability On-site, subjective evaluations On-Site Factory Quality Audits On-Site Social Compliance Audits Factory Process & System Audit Factory Testing Facilities In-Depth Due … [Read more...]

This is the 10th part in our China supplier vetting series. We’ll cover requests for quotations, negotiations, and contracts. By now we covered pretty much all sorts of due diligence a paranoid importer might go through! And yet it’s not over. While I am no expert in this stage of the buying process, there are a few important considerations that I want to address. Organized RFQ (Request For Quotation) One thing you want to check is whether the supplier you end up working with is … [Read more...]

If you are about to select one Chinese supplier, and you know you will be tied to them for the foreseeable future, it is in your interest to spend some time and money to vet them. Here are a couple of examples: A company is about to work with a manufacturer on a complex, custom-developed, product. If things go well, production will start in 4-6 months. Finding out many issues later will mean very serious delays. An end customer has to approve the facility or it has to be certified to a … [Read more...]

In a previous article I described why and how a factory’s quality system can be audited. However, if you want to confirm a factory's reliability with high certainly, you might have to dig deeper. A quality audit will only focus on the quality systems. And chances are, the auditor is not familiar with the factory's production processes, so he won't look at the process controls that really matter. I wrote about it in this article before. The key here is to evaluate the maturity of the … [Read more...]

This is another article in our "supplier vetting" series. So you vetted a potential supplier through background checks and a factory quality audit. Great. You might also have to check their social & environmental policies if you are in one of these cases: One of your customers require you to work with responsible manufacturers; Your brand might be tarnished if a negative story comes up in the press; Your brand promises certain things that are not to be taken for granted (e.g. … [Read more...]

This is another article in our "supplier vetting" series. So you asked potential suppliers a number of questions, then you visited them and noted your subjective evaluations... If you want to move further in the direction of working with them, the next step is generally a factory quality audit. Working with a manufacturer that has a strong quality system ensures that 'very bad surprises in production' are less likely to come up than with an average factory. I am going to explain why … [Read more...]

So you have identified a potential supplier, you vetted their reputation & legitimacy, you asked them questions before a visit... and now is time to pay them a visit in China. I will cover the different aspects of the factory that you can audit in future articles. Today I am writing about your subjective impressions, and they are just as important! Are they a good fit for your company? I mentioned the importance of a good "fit" between the manufacturer and the buyer before, but now is a … [Read more...]