Manufacturing and Quality Control blog

We’ve all come across the term third party inspections in one way or the other. Some are well familiar with it, while others may still have a few questions in mind.
This post offers a closer look at what third party inspections involve and what companies may gain from them.

Every year the story is the same, Chinese factories start to reduce their production speed which affects the supply chain. It seems at times, that no one learns from the past. During the summer season, we would rather play it safe and take a few more days as a buffer as opposed to sticking to the delivery date originally confirmed by the supplier.

Importers often insist on working directly with the factories that manufacture their products. There are many reasons why: factory-direct pricing, having a direct line of communication to the factory itself, and other benefits generally associated with “cutting out the middleman.”

Chinese manufacturing and quality control may seem like it’s a world apart; something that happens so far away from the everyday lives of western importers and consumers that its nearly impossible for them to get a glimpse into these processes.

Bangladesh continues to make headlines as new revelations about the tragic Rana Plaza factory collapse come to light. This publicity is causing importers and international analysts to wonder about the pros and cons of sourcing products from a center for ultra-cheap labor such as Bangladesh in comparison to other options, notably China.

Even with the advent of websites like Alibaba.com and MadeInChina.com, sourcing products from China can be a daunting task. This is a major reason why many buyers forgo sourcing altogether and rely on agents or trading companies to do the legwork.

Recently an American business executive named Chip Starnes was literally held hostage inside his office at his company's medical supplies factory on the outskirts of Beijing. Chip's imprisonment - which spanned nearly a week - started when it was announced that some of the manufacturing processes at the plant would be moved to India and that employees involved in those processes would be laid off.