Manufacturing and Quality Control blog

As an experienced buyer, you know how hard it can be to get the product you ordered manufactured to your specifications. You may have even considered product inspections to catch quality issues and make sure your orders are on track. But have you stopped to consider the inspection process and how it should be done properly? This step-by-step guide will tell you how product inspections are performed so that the buyer gets an accurate look at the order and is able to help the supplier improve.

Topics: Product Inspection

Maybe your flight has just touched down at Hong Kong International Airport. And maybe you need to get to Shenzhen, but you’d like to take in the beautiful scenery that Hong Kong has to offer. So what would be the scenic way to get to Shenzhen from Hong Kong?

Topics: Travel Tips & Advice

Remember your first China trip? Remember how exciting and new everything felt?  Trying new foods, experiencing new things, and traveling in China, even if only for work, can be very exciting and really open your eyes.

Topics: Travel Tips & Advice

If you've ever bought products made overseas you may have wondered how inspectors decide how many units to inspect. You may even have heard the term “AQL” thrown around regarding quality control and wondered if you should be using AQL for inspection.

Topics: Product Inspection, Acceptable Quality Level (AQL), aql for inspections

Why would anyone want to buy through a trading company when they can cut out the middleman? Can’t I save money by going factory direct?

Topics: Sourcing

Has your supplier or QC company ever asked for the Pantone color spec of your products? If you ever wonder what are Pantone colors and how there used to make and inspect your products you came to the right article. We'll tell you everything you need to know about Pantone colors and how we use them.

Topics: Quality Q&A

Finding a Chinese supplier to manufacture a product is easy nowadays. Current technology allows you to find hundreds of factories, in a moment’s notice, that are very eager to earn your business. The hard part is getting the actual products you order. Here are three issues you will want to avoid when sourcing in China.

Topics: Manufacturing Tips & Advice

Have you ever worked with a supplier that just didn’t seem to have your best interests at heart? Maybe there was poor communication between you and the factory. Or, maybe your supplier hit you with one excuse after another to explain poor product quality or a delayed shipment. If you’ve had experience with either situation, you probably wish you’d known how to avoid it. So how do you avoid working with a bad supplier?

Topics: Manufacturing Tips & Advice

“Are prices in China really so low?” This is not an easy question to answer. Prices for goods imported from China used to be very competitive but are beginning to look less attractive. Sourcing in China has become more difficult as negotiating with a Chinese supplier for a much lower price is not as easy as it was ten years ago.

Topics: Sourcing

Are social compliance audits really necessary? What are the risks of not considering social compliance? In this article, Steve Mogentale tells us why manufacturers and importers should care about social compliance audits.

Topics: Social Compliance