Manufacturing and Quality Control blog

As a buyer half a world away, there is nothing more frustrating than your supplier’s factory manager giving you a hard time with production. This situation may happen more often than you’d like. But before you decide to play hardball and threaten to take your business elsewhere, take a deep breath and relax. With this in mind, here are three tips to help you deal with a difficult factory manager.

Topics: Manufacturing Tips & Advice

As a buyer of goods manufactured overseas, have you considered the true cost of product inspections and factory audits? Working with a contract manufacturer is a tricky business – especially if the factory is located on the other side of the world. In this article, we provide the findings and figures to answer these questions.

Topics: Manufacturing Tips & Advice

It is no secret that China has been one of the world’s largest sources of knockoff products for years. As a buyer how can you be sure that you are not getting what is essentially a knockoff of your own product? Here is how supplier verification can help you keep up with your product’s quality and avoid any low quality materials from sneaking onto the assembly floor.

Topics: Manufacturing Tips & Advice

How can you be confident about working with a new supplier without carrying out an audit or, at the very least, visiting the factory? Unlike a social compliance audit, which focuses heavily on working conditions, a supplier review mainly evaluates a supplier’s quality management system and relies on ISO 9001 standards. Here are five key findings that a buyer can expect from a professionally-conducted supplier review.

Topics: Manufacturing Tips & Advice

An inspection report is the most valuable tool a buyer can attain when manufacturing abroad. However, many buyers don’t really take advantage of this opportunity simply because they don’t know how to. We are here to change that and teach you what to look out for in order to get the most value out of your inspection reports.

Topics: Manufacturing Tips & Advice

Trust serves as the foundation to a healthy business relationship, no matter what field in which you find yourself working. The problem arises when you need to build a trustworthy relationship with representatives of a supplier on the other side of the world who do not speak your language. Trust is necessary between a buyer and their supplier in order to survive in global business. But in China, you should be extra careful when choosing business partners. Part of being careful means carrying out product inspections, and the best way to be careful is by being having China QC.

Topics: Manufacturing Tips & Advice

Have you ever sent an approved sample to a factory for your QC inspector to have during inspection? In this article, we’ll walk you through the simple process of sealing samples to prevent tampering and when it matters.This simple yet key preventative measure is often overlooked by many new buyers. Sealing samples protects buyers from innumerable headaches and tons of unwanted costs, which eventually come about when they receive a substandard order.

Topics: Manufacturing Tips & Advice

If you’re hiring a QC company to carry out product inspection, how can you trust that they’re staff is familiar with exactly how you want your product to be shipped? How can you be sure they’re actually verifying your specifications point-for-point? For answers to these pressing questions, I met with InTouch Managing Director Andrew Reich to discuss the kinds of procedures that are vital to a quality control company.

Topics: Manufacturing Tips & Advice

Have you ever received an inspection report from your China QC team and not been clear about the severity of a particular quality defect found in your order? If you’re like most buyers, you’ve probably had trouble being sure about a defect just by looking at a photograph in a report. You might have wished you could actually look at the defective product in person to be sure about whether or not it’s serious. Having samples of defects sealed on-site during inspections can be an invaluable resource to you as the buyer.

Topics: Manufacturing Tips & Advice

You’ve contacted a supplier, ordered samples and possibly flown to China yourself to meet with your supplier. Finally, most importantly, you’ve placed an order – now what? Here are InTouch’s own four steps to make the scheduling process as easy and stress-free for the you as possible.

Topics: Manufacturing Tips & Advice