We have seen this situation a number of times: An American or European company designs a new product They find a manufacturing partner that has some general experience in their industry (but has never made that precise product since … [Read more...]
Making Prototypes In China: 5 Key Steps And Objectives
By Fabien Gaussorgues Are you going to manufacture a mechanical and/or electrical product in China? This article will help you plan for the steps to follow. You might need a concept of the product, to show investors and to launch … [Read more...]
Example of Indiegogo Project Made in China: NAOX
The number of new products to be launched on Kickstarter or Indiegogo has grown very quickly. It seems not a week passes without a start-up team contacting us over at Sofeast for either developing a new product or for help on their … [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...]
China Supplier Vetting Part 11: Wrapping It Up
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 … [Read more...]
How a Chinese Factory Can Get ISO 9001 Certified
I wrote before about the way certain consultants are routinely hired by manufacturers to “make paperwork look good”. It is the norm in China. However, some factory owners really want to manage their business in accordance with best … [Read more...]
China Supplier Vetting Part 10: Pricing, Negotiation, Contracts
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 … [Read more...]
China Supplier Vetting Part 9: In-Depth Due Diligence
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 … [Read more...]
China Supplier Vetting Part 8: Factory Testing Facilities
If you have conducted inspections at your suppliers' facilities in China, you have probably found that many of the testing equipment necessary to check your product's quality is not available on site. The question, of course, is 'how can … [Read more...]
China Supplier Vetting Part 7: Factory Process & System Audit
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 … [Read more...]