Sofeast's head of supply chain management, Kate, shares 7 tips that will help you get better results when you're sourcing from China (or other countries in Asia, too). She also sheds light on how we approach the process effectively for our … [Read more...]
Want To Prevent Assembly Problems? Use This Checklist.
Pilots follow a checklist before they fly. Same thing for doctors & nurses. But, for some reason, I see very few Chinese factories follow a checklist that can help them avoid assembly problems before they make a new product (for the … [Read more...]
Good Project Management With Chinese Suppliers From A Product Designer’s Perspective [Podcast]
Let's hear from an experienced product designer about project management with Chinese suppliers... In this episode, we catch up with Andy Bartlett, a friend of Sofeast, who is an enormously experienced product designer from the UK, to … [Read more...]
7 Reasons To Switch To A New Chinese Manufacturer
Many times, importers ask me "how to control production better?", and they proceed to give me examples of the recent issues they have had with their current Chinese supplier. And I often tell them "switch to a better supplier". Now, … [Read more...]
How To Cooperate With Your Chinese Supplier, Part 10: Jewelry & Gold Plating Problems: Exploring the process and controlling quality
By Fabien Gaussorgues We have worked with multiple jewelry manufacturers in Europe, the US, and Australia. In this time, I realized that their knowledge is often far below what one would expect from industry experts which leads to many … [Read more...]
How To Manage Chinese Suppliers based on Facts & Data
If you buy products from a few Chinese suppliers, do you have a system for managing them? And do you use data for that? In this post, I'll show you how to manage Chinese suppliers using facts and data. … [Read more...]
How To Reduce The Risks Of Substandard Components In Your Productions
One of the major fears of importers is to notice substandard components when they receive a batch from China. But how to reduce the risks of receiving them from your suppliers? … [Read more...]
5 Ways To Have a Chinese Manufacturer Take Responsibility for Quality Issues
Many importers lament that Chinese suppliers don't take any responsibility when quality issues are found after shipment. Ten years ago, I would have confirmed that it happens less than 0.1% of the time. These days, it seems to become more … [Read more...]
6 Steps and 1 Key To Reduce Subcontracting Risks in China
I wrote before that the vast majority of Chinese manufacturers find it natural to subcontract certain orders. There are two main problems with this: It seems like a disproportionate number of quality issues occur on batches on which a … [Read more...]