Oliver Knack started with InTouch in August 2013 and since InTouch's merger with Asia Quality Focus has served as the company's CEO. He comes from Brisbane, Australia and has lived and worked all over China, including in Qingdao, Taipei and Shenzhen. He is an avid car enthusiast.
Supplying to Walmart is a major accomplishment. But what can quickly end that relationship is a factory in your supply chain that earns three orange ratings within a certain time frame or one red one from Walmart's audit team. By meeting Walmart's ethical sourcing standards, you can avoid this nightmare situation and keep business going smoothly.
Topics:
Social Compliance
The Chinese military, weather, and outdated air traffic control procedures are all out of your control. But with a little due diligence and proper planning, you can avoid the worst that flight delays in China present.
Topics:
Travel Tips & Advice
All of these tablet PC defects are preventable with proper due diligence and testing during and after production. As with other consumer electronics and appliances, tablet PCs have the potential to pose a hazard to end users, such as overheating. So it’s especially important that the product is inspected before it leaves the factory.
Topics:
Product Inspection
With awareness of these quality defects in shoes, you can avoid footwear that doesn't meet your standards. Remaining vigilant against these defects can also protect you, your loved ones, and your customers from any accidents that might result from shoes falling apart unexpectedly.
Topics:
Footwear,
Product Inspection
If you’re looking for advice on negotiating with Chinese factories, you’re not alone. Negotiating with suppliers is an important part of manufacturing in China. Early negotiations and meetings set the tone for how the rest of the buyer-and-seller relationship will play out. If you want that relationship to begin on solid footing, it’s important to be prepared ahead of time. Effectively negotiating with Chinese factories can help you not only to reach a lower price, but to receive higher product quality and avoid unnecessary shipping delays as well.
Topics:
Sourcing,
negotiating with chinese factories
You might be surprised by what your independent auditor CAN and CANNOT do regarding scheduling and conducting a service on your behalf. It’s important for you to understand what factors your QC company can’t control so that you can address those with your supplier directly and avoid costly quality issues, shipping delays and other undesirable effects of losing control of production.
Topics:
Manufacturing Tips & Advice
Sometimes factories resist third-party inspection. The consequences range from shipping delays to undiscovered quality issues due to forgoing inspection. And if you’ve experienced this as an importer, you’re not alone. Resistance to third-party inspection can be taken as a red flag and a sign that you should pay more attention to the products and the relationship you have with your supplier. But some hesitation on the part of the factory is fairly common.
Topics:
Product Inspection
Knowing these six common garment defects will help you be aware of issues that have plagued the garment industry for decades. While quality issues like untrimmed threads may seem commonplace and acceptable for lower-end retailers, open seams and dimension issues could result in unsellable product, product returns and damage to your brand.
Topics:
Product Inspection
You’re coming to China to visit your suppliers. Maybe you've taken the time to learn a couple of phrases like “hello” and “thank you” in Mandarin, which you hope will come in handy during your trip. You may have read a phrasebook, but most of the terms they contain are academic Chinese and not really the way people normally speak day-to-day. Here are 5 simple phrases that most people actually use in everyday life.
Topics:
Cultural Notes from the East
What does a “pending” result mean in a product inspection report? Regardless of which QC company you use, product inspection reports will generally have three different result categories – pass, pending or fail. While pass and fail are self-explanatory, the pending result begs the question, what exactly is “pending”? In this article, we clear up what that means and what you can do to stop them from happening. .
Topics:
Manufacturing Tips & Advice
