If you have already done the hard work of building a look-alike and work-alike prototype, congratulations! However, there are still these 7 most common pitfalls you have to avoid while going from prototype to production... … [Read more...]
Product Safety When Buying from China: Avoid Negligence
Dan Harris wrote an article about product safety (How to Reduce Your Foreign Manufactured Product Liability Risks) that will, hopefully, open the eyes of many people to the risks they are exposed to. I thought it particularly interesting because he went through typical questions asked of importers that resold unsafe products: To convince recalcitrant clients of the need for product liability protection for the products they are having made overseas, I sometimes send them the following … [Read more...]
Why Do Importers Need Product Reliability Testing? [Podcast]
![Why Do Importers Need Product Reliability Testing? [Podcast]](https://qualityinspection.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/WhyDoImportersNeedProductReliabilityTestingPodcast-1140x445.jpg)
Product reliability testing is a must for importers who want to avoid risk... 2020 added considerable strain and difficulty to many importers' lives, so today, more than ever, it's so important to implement measures to protect your business against expensive recalls and lawsuits which may occur if your products don't reach expected reliability, quality, and safety standards. Undertaking thorough product reliability testing during the development and manufacturing stages is one such way to … [Read more...]
Investigating the Causes of Product Failure and Improving Design
You conduct reliability tests on your new products. You and your suppliers do product inspections and laboratory tests on mass production orders. Your customers probably give you feedback on the issues they find on what you ship to them. You collect many data this way. You set aside samples that don't pass. But do you learn from this? One of the most important activities is the investigation of the causes of product failure when certain samples fail the inspections/tests or fail in the hands of … [Read more...]
Factory Testing Facilities | Vetting Chinese Suppliers (Part 8) [Podcast]
![Factory Testing Facilities | Vetting Chinese Suppliers (Part 8) [Podcast]](https://qualityinspection.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/FactoryTestingFacilitiesVettingChineseSuppliersPart8Podcast-1140x445.jpg)
Why do we look at the factory testing facilities when vetting a Chinese supplier? A great question here is: "How can my supplier know that the product they're manufacturing is good if they're unable to test that they reach my specifications, quality, and safety requirements?" If they have no way of testing or are skipping important tests this is probably a major red flag (unless you're certain that they're sending samples out to a lab to be tested all of the time) as it shows that the … [Read more...]
What Is Compliance Testing? [Podcast]
Why is compliance testing so important for buyers who import products from China? Compliance testing helps assure your product's compliance with your market's product and safety standards. By conducting such testing, you'll be testing whether the product is safe for consumers under normal use, doesn't contain hazardous substances above acceptable levels, and won't be restricted from being imported. Because importers are usually held responsible for any safety problems caused by … [Read more...]
Product Reliability Testing | 7 FAQs
If you develop, manufacture, or distribute a product that has to perform its intended function for at least a certain duration, you probably need to do product reliability testing. Otherwise, you may have no idea how soon the product will fail and how it will fail, and that might cause you serious issues in the marketplace. Our clients often ask us questions on this topic. Read my responses to the most frequently asked questions. … [Read more...]
Reliability Testing Plan For A Home Appliance (an Electronic Hairbrush) in China [Example]
![Reliability Testing Plan For A Home Appliance in China [Example]](https://qualityinspection.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/ReliabilityTestingPlanForAHomeApplianceinChinaExample-1140x445.jpg)
So, you have found the product you wanted to re-sell on Alibaba or Global Sources. You feel the supplier will be fine. You had them audited and they seem reliable. They have the required certifications for selling on your market. Like tens of thousands of other buyers of home appliances are, you will go ahead if you feel there is sufficient market demand for this product. However, there is one important thing you forgot. How do these products behave in their users' hands? Maybe you … [Read more...]
How HALT and HASS Can Help your Product Development Efforts
HALT and HASS are accelerated product reliability testing methods focused on finding potential defects in products. These acronyms stand for: HALT – Highly Accelerated Life Test HASS – Highly Accelerated Stress Screen If you are developing a new product ready for manufacturing and you want to know if it will keep working as planned after a few years of use, you can send a few samples to a testing laboratory and ask them to perform HALT and/or HASS. These types of tests are … [Read more...]