Most purchasers pay too much attention to the price of what they buy but fail to take risks into account. That's a very widespread issue. One solution to this might be developing a supply chain KPI scorecard, to force buyers to report on … [Read more...]
All about Thermoplastics VS Thermosets [videos]
In previous video series, we have covered plastic testing and also plastic injection molding. Now we are covering the many varieties of polymer types in our new series on thermoplastics vs thermosets. … [Read more...]
Supply Chain Risk Management, Part 1: What are VUCA and Black Swans?
We seem to be at a pretty low point right now: Billions of people are confined at home. Economists are predicting a disaster and seem to think 2020 will probably be worse than what most of us can remember. The behavior and … [Read more...]
5 Marketing & Sales Mistakes Hardware Startups Tend To Make
John Teel from Predictable Designs (a great resource for hardware startups, with a focus on electronic design & engineering) just launched his podcast, and I thought the third episode was quite interesting. The interviewee was Dave … [Read more...]
7 Typical Pitfalls for Hardware Startups Producing in China
A few years ago, I remember reading about the Coolest Cooler, a nice product that raised an amazing amount of money on Kickstarter: over 6,000 people bought it for a total of 13 million USD!! Yet, they went bust leaving a lot of frustrated … [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.) … [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 … [Read more...]
Sourcing from China 101, Part 2: How to Identify Potential Chinese Suppliers?
Now I am assuming that you have decided to source in China by yourself, but how to identify potential Chinese suppliers who will do a great job? One key point I want to communicate is this: you need to follow a process. You CANNOT browse … [Read more...]
5 ways an importer can develop an unfair advantage
As I wrote recently, many companies that import from China have been forced to revise their approach over the last couple of years. Those importers that turn a good profit have developed an "unfair advantage" that is not easily copied by … [Read more...]
Core quality tools in the automotive industry
Over the past couple of years, I noticed some very interesting comments on some articles on this blog. They came from Brad Pritts, a consulting engineer and six sigma black belt who works primarily in the auto industry. I asked Brad a … [Read more...]