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Are YOU A ‘Hands-On’ Or ‘Hands-Off’ Buyer? [Podcast]

March 18, 2022

Hands-On Or Hands-Off Buyer

In this episode... Many importers are new to sourcing from China so we've been creating a mini-series of episodes that explores the sourcing process with advice and best practices from Sofeast's CEO Renaud Anjoran. In this series of episodes, we’re exploring how to do your own sourcing from China, from finding suppliers for your products to getting them made. We’ve moved onto soft skills, and last time we spoke about building rapport with your suppliers. Now, we’re going to look at how … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Sourcing New Suppliers Tagged With: hands on buyers, project management, Sourcing

Sourcing from China (Part 3): Project management & checking quality early in production. [Podcast]

December 3, 2021

Sourcing from China (Part 3): Project management & checking quality early in production. [Podcast]

In this episode… We continue to explore what importers who're new to outsourcing manufacturing to suppliers in China need to be able to handle themselves when sourcing, developing products, and manufacturing there. In part 2 of the series (episode 75), we went through the terms you need to negotiate with your chosen supplier, how to keep leverage over them, and how and why to clearly describe what you actually want from them at the pre-production stage. As pre-production is done, we're … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Supplier Management Tagged With: first article inspection, podcast, project management, qc inspections

Good Project Management With Chinese Suppliers From A Product Designer’s Perspective [Podcast]

January 23, 2021

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 discuss his project management best practices and observations from his 'designer's' perspective for when developing a new product and manufacturing it in China. If you're developing a new product and have Chinese suppliers, you'll love this episode. Andy … [Read more...]

Filed Under: New Product Development Tagged With: managing Chinese suppliers, new product development, NPI, podcast, product design, project management

Service Providers: Escape the Commoditization Trap

July 30, 2020

Service Providers: Escape the Commoditization Trap

We compete with a number of other service providers, and over the years I have seen stark changes happen in some verticals. An interesting case study is the TIC (Testing, Inspection, Certification) industry. In 2005, importers were paying 500+ USD per man-day for QC inspections on consumer goods. Over the years, salaries and other costs went up, but the market price tended to go down. (I wrote before why some buyers always want a lower price.) What are the reasons? It is a combination of … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Quality Control Tips Tagged With: factory audits, new product development, product inspections, project management

The Problem With Visual Management Boards in Factories

March 28, 2019

The Problem With Visual Management Boards in Factories

Visual management boards of some kind are now basically the norm in all factories belonging to a multinational group, so they must be effective, right? I'm not so sure. Not that they cannot be useful (they CAN be VERY useful), but, in most cases I have witnessed, these boards just aren't contributing as much to lean initiatives or process improvement as factory management would like them to be. … [Read more...]

Filed Under: In The Factory, Process Improvement Tagged With: factory performance, lean, project management, visual management, visual management boards


Weekly updates for professional importers on better understanding, controlling, and improving manufacturing & supply chain in China.

This is the official blog of Sofeast.com.

This blog is written by Renaud Anjoran, an ASQ Certified Quality Engineer who has been involved in chinese manufacturing since 2005.

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