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 Diligence
It is not exhaustive. I could have included many other red flags, for instance during the RFQ process, during the prototyping process, and so on.
I also wanted to point out some older articles that compliment this series nicely:
- Don’t qualify only 1 supplier. Keep a backup in case things don’t go well.
- It is quite common for Chinese suppliers to raise their prices unexpectedly. Be prepared for it.
- You have a bad experience? Don’t place a re-order. Go to your backup instead.
- Make sure to adapt your quality control strategy to the reliability of each supplier.
- It might make a lot of sense to develop your key suppliers over time.
- As you start to work with a supplier, keep track of key indicators and give them feedback.
I hope it’s helpful!