QualityInspection.org

Quality Assurance, Product Development, and Purchasing Strategies in China

  • Home
  • Articles
    • How To Manufacture A Product In China (without losing your shirt)? [Importer’s Guide]
  • Best Of
  • About Us
  • Contact us
X

Don't miss a post

It's easy to subscribe to our newsletter where you'll receive weekly updates for professional importers and manufacturers on better understanding, controlling, and improving manufacturing & supply chain in China, India, Vietnam, and beyond.

How To Add Process Validation To Your QA Plan

August 11, 2021 by Renaud Anjoran

How To Add Process Validation To Your QA Plan

If you (or your suppliers) suffer from inconsistent quality, in many cases there is at least one missing ingredient in the quality assurance plan. And, more often than not, process validation was skipped. … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Quality Control Tips Tagged With: Advanced Product Quality Planning, inconsistent quality, process validation, product quality, qa, qa plan, quality assurance, quality assurance strategy

How to set up a Receiving Inspection: Checklist, Procedure, Reporting form

October 22, 2019 by Renaud Anjoran

How to set up a Receiving Inspection: Checklist, Procedure, Reporting form

I have written extensively about pre-shipment inspections (before, during, or after production), always from the perspective of the buyer checking what a supplier is doing; but I noticed that I haven't covered the receiving inspection (also called incoming quality inspections). However, that's a really important topic, so let's get into how to set one up here... … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Quality Control Tips Tagged With: product inspections, qa, QC, quality inspections, receiving inspection

21 Assumptions About Buying From Chinese Suppliers To Avoid

August 6, 2019 by Renaud Anjoran

21 Assumptions To Avoid When Buying from Chinese Suppliers

Many buyers who are seeking to manufacture products in China tend to make assumptions about buying from Chinese suppliers that are seldom valid here, and it can be quite dangerous. When I started spending a lot of time in Chinese factories, what I saw blew my mind. A foreign buyer simply can’t imagine what is sometimes going on behind the scenes. I'll say that China is the land where everything is possible... from the worst to the best. I wrote 21 common assumptions below, in categories, … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Supplier Management Tagged With: assumptions about Chinese manufacturers, commercial negotiations, new product development, product compliance, qa, QC, quality systems, supplier background check, supplier development, vetting suppliers

Are Calibration Reports Always A Must? Why Auditors Should Think Before Raising Suppliers’ Costs

May 28, 2019 by Annie Chan

Are Calibration Reports Always A Must? Why Auditors Should Think Before Raising Suppliers’ Costs

By Annie Chan Did you get a visit from an auditor who seemed obsessed with calibration reports? Was he/she happy to see that all tools had been calibrated based on internal reports, or (even better) on third-party lab certificates? There is no doubt auditors love asking for all kinds of reports to confirm the supplier complies with requirements. However, their requests are not always reasonable. … [Read more...]

Filed Under: In The Factory Tagged With: calibration certificates, calibration reports, factory audits, qa, quality assurance

How Much Does a Quality Inspection in China cost?

April 16, 2019 by Renaud Anjoran

How Much Does a Quality Inspection in China cost?

Understanding the cost of quality inspections in China I am always surprised by the expectations of some importers regarding the cost of quality inspections in a Chinese factory. Some importers get to talk about their project for some time, see where we would help them, and finally (almost as an afterthought) ask: "How much does a quality inspection in China cost?" The 2 categories of buyers when it comes to quality inspection costs I say "299 USD per day of work", and I can nearly hear … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Quality Control Tips Tagged With: qa, QC, quality assurance, quality control, quality inspection costs

When To Do a Random AQL Inspection vs. Check 100% of the Goods

April 5, 2019 by Renaud Anjoran

When To Do a Random AQL Inspection vs. Check 100% of the Goods

First, let me get one thing out of the way: not all batches need to be checked. If a manufacturer has great systems and processes, and if they have a history of complying with your quality standard, there is usually no reason to send quality inspectors to their facility. Similarly, if you can easily return the whole batch and it can be reworked quickly, you probably don't want to spend resources on checking whether they did as promised. Now, let's assume you do want confirmation of … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Quality Control Tips Tagged With: 100% inspection, AQL, product inspections, qa, QC, quality inspections, random aql inspection, random sampling aql inspection

3 Common Ways Factories Try to Cheat Inspectors/Auditors

March 19, 2019 by Renaud Anjoran

3 Common Ways Factories Try to Cheat Inspectors/Auditors

Every day in China, in Vietnam, in Bangladesh, and in India, thousands of inspectors and auditors take a bus or a car to a factory. And, in some of those factories, managers are plotting how to cheat those unwelcome visitors. Let's look at 3 very common ways this is done, so you are warned and ready to avoid unscrupulous suppliers like this... … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Ethical Sourcing Tagged With: chinese factories, chinese suppliers, ethical sourcing, factory audits, product inspections, qa, QC, quality inspections, quality system audits, social compliance

Chinese Factories Designing, Branding, and Selling on Amazon: Q&A

February 13, 2017 by Renaud Anjoran

Latest Trends in China Sourcing, Compliance, and Quality Control

I wrote before about the challenges of Chinese factories to sell on Amazon. And yet, it seems to be an emerging trend. I asked Fredrik Gronkvist (from China Importal), who has also been observing the latest trends, for his opinion on this. Q: Ten years ago, Chinese factories ‘made to order’, and seeing one of them ‘make to stock’ was a rare occurrence. Have you seen more and more manufacturers 'make to stock’? What do they do with it? First, Chinese manufacturers still ‘make to order’ and I … [Read more...]

Filed Under: China Insights Tagged With: Amazon, China manufacturing, chinese factories, FBA, Fredrik Gronkvist, Latest trends, made to order, make to stock, qa

Solving a Quality Problem Seldom Necessitates High-Tech Engineering

October 11, 2016 by Renaud Anjoran

In many companies, and in particular in many Chinese companies, the response to problems is often "let's invest in technology". Unfortunately, spending a lot of resources on engineering is seldom the best solution. I just read a great story that illustrates this. A toothpaste manufacturer had a regular quality issue that was generating bad publicity: some boxes didn't contain a tube of toothpaste. It was due to the way the production lines were set up. They spent 8 million dollars on a … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Process Improvement Tagged With: mistake-proofing, poka yoke, product quality, qa, QC, solving quality issues

Defect List vs. Checkpoint List

July 10, 2015 by Renaud Anjoran

I noticed many people confuse two things: the list of potential defects, and the list of checkpoints to follow during an inspection. What I see very often is a list of potential defects, but no list of checkpoints. There are 2 main problems with this: The inspector has no structure to follow. When random sampling is used, the inspector should NOT count every problem he finds as a defect. If he checks a point on the full sample size (for example on 200 pcs), that's fine. But this is … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Quality Control Tips Tagged With: defect list, product inspection, qa, QC, qc checklist, quality inspection

  • 1
  • 2
  • Next Page »


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.

Hit the button below to get in touch:

Contact Us!

Subscribe to our email newsletter

Connect with us

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
sofeast
sofeast
sofeast

Latest Articles

  • Why Following A Comprehensive NPI Process Pays Dividends And How Involved Buyers Need To Be
  • 7 Key Product Tests You Need To Use
  • UL Certification: Does Our Product Need It?
  • A Logical Development Roadmap for New Hardware Products
  • How did Apple build a winning supply chain in China?

Categories

  • Quality Control Tips
  • Sourcing New Suppliers
  • Supplier Management
  • New Product Development
  • Process Improvement
  • Ethical Sourcing

Archives

© 2023 QualityInspection.org