Manufacturing and Quality Control blog

What is a social compliance audit and what does it mean for manufacturers? This is a question that's risen to prominence in the past several years and resonated throughout global trading and manufacturing. When it comes to making sure that your suppliers are compliant with local laws and the requirements of retailers you supply, social compliance audits are just about the only tool at your disposal... .

Topics: Social Compliance, social compliance audit

Hate to see chips, peeling and other damage to the enamel coating of your cast iron cookware? Coating adhesion testing verifies bonding strength of the coating and is an important on-site for cast iron cookware. This type of special inspection testing looks for any weaknesses in the enamel... ?

Topics: Special Inspection Tests

Do your suppliers routinely misinterpret your emails and verbal instructions? If so, you are definitely not alone. Just about every factory in China has staff that can communicate with clients in English. Yet innocent typos, outright fraud, and just plain cultural differences crop up all the time, often in subtle ways.

Topics: Manufacturing Tips & Advice

For many years, importers and retailers have been using third-party inspection companies to verify the quality of their products made in Asia. But inspecting products when they’re finished, or partially finished, can only do so much. That’s why a new trend is emerging in third-party inspection. Quality control is becoming more and more concerned with verifying the manufacturing PROCESS, not just the product.

Topics: Manufacturing Tips & Advice

Should I go out drinking with management and staff from my factory? Would I be overstepping a boundary by letting my supplier take me out for a night on the town? These are common questions asked by foreign buyers or importers that visit China to meet with their supplier, and if you've ever visited a factory in China...

Topics: Cultural Notes from the East

How can you be sure if the cookware you're manufacturing meets quality and safety standards? For someone unfamiliar with quality control for cookware products, even the basics of cookware inspection can be an elusive concept...

Topics: Cookware and Kitchenware

You may have read the recent news following the Takata debacle and the ensuing crisis involving defective airbags produced by the Japanese supplier. Where did Takata go wrong? Clearly, inadequate product testing and quality control processes were a major contributor to the crisis - specifically, airbag inflator testing...

Topics: Auto Products

Why would you want to spend time and money inspecting a product before it's finished? You can't possibly know anything about the quality of a product you're manufacturing until you see the finished product. Right?...

Topics: Quality Q&A

If you manufacture a product, you know how difficult it can be to get the aesthetics of your product to be just the way you or your customers want them. And when it comes to the quality of screen printing and labeling on your product, maybe you think aesthetics are all that's at stake...

Topics: Special Inspection Tests