A few months back, I wrote about how some buyers can no longer put up with their suppliers' quality issues. And I often lament on the poor state of quality systems here. In this article I'd like to mention the other enormous source of frustration for foreign buyers: the high minimum order quantities (MOQs) and the long lead times. High MOQs and long lead times are tightly linked They come from the same underlying issue: the "big batch & long queue" mentality. Industrial engineers, as … [Read more...]
7 Common Mistakes Revealed by Factory Org Charts
One of the first things we look at, during factory audits, is the organization chart. And it often points to serious operational dysfunctions. The ISO 9001 standard does not require an org chart to be prepared (it only asks for the definition and communication of authority lines). It is a very common document, though, and many Chinese manufacturers fall into the same pitfalls. Mistake 1: not having a quality department Most small workshops don't have personnel dedicated to checking quality … [Read more...]