[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”15946″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center”][vc_column_text]It’s estimated that global aluminum demand will increase by almost 40% by 2030. To meet demand growth in all industrial sectors, aluminum manufacturers will need to produce an additional 33.3 mt within 8 years. Keep on reading to find out why you should source aluminum manufacturers in India.
Continue reading “List of Aluminum Manufacturers In India (10 Options)”
Sofeast’s CEO Renaud Anjoran and Adrian from the team discuss product failure analysis. This is an action you should consider taking if you suddenly experience quality, reliability, or safety problems with your product during development or, more commonly, once it’s in consumers’ hands in the field.
The analysis will help you pinpoint the problem, find its cause, and decide on the next steps to contain the issue and fix the problem. This is especially important if problems are severe enough to warrant a recall.
Your takeaway is a step-by-step explanation of the failure analysis methodology and the activities per step, so you can conduct your own if need be!
Listen: How To Do A Product Failure Analysis?
Watch: Video on YouTube
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Our sourcing team has been tracking the costs of China raw materials for well over a year to help importers buying common materials for their products in China keep tabs on the market. If your supplier suddenly blames material costs for a price increase, perhaps you can use this information to challenge them!?
At least, it will allow you to plan ahead if prices for your essential materials seem to be increasing (for instance, you may decide to buy up some inventory in advance to insulate yourself from further rises).
Here’s the up-to-date material cost data from China for you as of late August 2022 and the price evolution since Jan ’21 which has remained relatively stable at a higher point below a 50% increase, for the most part:
Let’s go through the materials and see their monthly cost changes and the notable reasons for them:
As you may know, manufacturing activity in China is somewhat depressed these days, perhaps exacerbated by energy problems and a lack of demand for goods from abroad. These points could be the reason for the few notable cost increases. Namely zinc and aluminum alloys, as well as silicone which has been accelerating a little.
Explore cost-reducing tips in this post: Rising Raw Material Prices: What Strategy To Follow? (6 Approaches).
What to do if your Chinese supplier suddenly tells you that material costs have risen: How To Cooperate With Your Chinese Supplier, Part 16: Bad News from China, Raw Material Prices Just Increased!
If your supplier just isn’t working out, maybe sourcing a new supplier will help you find one who can offer you better prices and more. If so, there’s no need to fear switching from your current supplier to a new one if you’re prepared: How To Switch To A Newer, Better Chinese Manufacturer? [eBook].
We hope this is helpful. Our mission at Sofeast is to help importers have transparency in their supply chain and to give them more control. And this information is critical to have some visibility into your manufacturer’s costing.
By the way, you can always contact us if you have any questions about whether a manufacturer’s quote is reasonable.
The Sofeast Group’s head of New Product Development, Andrew Amirnovin, is back on the podcast with Adrian from the team talking about the DVT and PVT phases during new product introduction.
A recent news story about the electronics giant Philips having to do a huge recall of ventilators and sleep apnea machines that have, unfortunately, caused deaths and injuries, spur the two to discuss the risks importers face if important steps are missed during the DVT (and PVT) phase of the NPI process.
What could have caused such a problem to make it into the production of such sensitive medical devices, and what can we learn from this example?
Issues like this probably originate in the DVT stage of the NPI process, so let’s examine the steps and testing to be followed, why they’re necessary for a successful new product launch, and how DVT issues spill over into PVT and then into mass production, too.
Suppose you’re bringing a new product to market. In that case, this story demonstrates why following a detailed new product introduction process that pulls out all the stops to find potential risks before production can start is crucial for manufacturing safe, high-quality, and reliable products.
Listen: How DVT & PVT Mistakes Result In Poor Quality Or Even Unsafe Products!
Watch: Video on YouTube
There are more episodes to come, so remember to rate us and subscribe! You can find us on:
If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to give us a 5* rating and share it with your network if you enjoy listening!
Sometimes your supplier will tell you that an inspection firm’s QC inspectors demand to be given bribes in order to give the inspection a positive result while threatening to give a negative one if they are not financially compensated.
What happens if you hear this from your Chinese manufacturing supplier..?
“Our supplier tells us that our inspection firm’s inspector demanded several hundred US dollars in order to give our latest batch of products’ inspection a pass and asked us not to send them to their factory any longer. We’re now worried that the inspectors and results aren’t reliable. What should we do?”
Unfortunately, it is very common for Chinese suppliers to try and discredit inspection companies, for the simple reason that they prefer if you waive inspections.
Fewer product inspections equal fewer problems for them to deal with before you send the final payment and they ship the goods.
While of course, it is impossible to have a 100% guarantee that inspectors won’t ask for bribes, this is less likely than the supplier ‘playing up’ in this way in our experience. So, if you’re in this position, don’t panic about your inspection results and whether the inspection firm can be trusted just yet.
There are some questions you can ask to get to the bottom of things:
There are a few points to remember:
When you start working with a supplier, make sure they (and the key people at the factory) know that corruption is absolutely not permitted in your supply chain. And if, for example, an inspector asks for bribes, they must say no and they will be given the opportunity to request another inspection company to come check a production when requested.
You need to document your quality standard and make it as detailed and specific as possible. This way, the inspector can show the factory people what you require, and there will not be suspicions that he/she is ‘making things up’.
It also helps to send inspectors earlier in production, when the objective is to give feedback about production quality rather than ‘stopping bad shipments’.
Finally, never heap large amounts of pressure on a supplier. If you say ‘either you pass, or we refuse shipment‘, there is a real risk that factory staff will make offers to your inspector.
If your supplier has been upset by an inspector legitimately attempting to uphold your quality standard you might have to lay down the law and stress how important product quality is to your business. Have you got a backup factory in place to switch suppliers if they refuse to fall into line?
If it turns out the inspection firm’s inspector was taking bribes, of course, don’t use them in future. That’s a reasonable reaction to a loss of trust like this.
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Do you find yourself in a difficult situation with a Chinese supplier? Let us know and we might answer your questions in a post like this! Contact us here.
You may also find these posts and podcast episodes helpful in this case:
If you’ve exhausted all possible avenues and your supplier won’t budge, if it’s feasible to do so, switching to a new supplier could be a solution to your problem. It doesn’t have to be as painful as you may think, as we outline in this free eBook…just remember to put protections in place that will prevent the same scenario from occurring again! Get your copy here: How To Switch To A Newer, Better Chinese Manufacturer? [eBook].
You can also read our entire ongoing series of posts about disputes with Chinese suppliers here.
Sofeast’s CEO Renaud Anjoran and Adrian from the team are back with a topic for importers placing large and valuable orders with their overseas manufacturers and performing many product inspections.
Your inspection budget is no doubt a reasonable size, but what if you could optimize your inspection schedule to reduce costs and get the same results without increasing risk (more than a minimal amount), or get even better results for the same budget by distributing resources differently? Renaud offers some inspection optimization strategies here.
Working with suppliers on making upstream improvements to product designs, factories, processes, etc, is also a great way to reduce quality risks and can help reduce your inspection budget over time as fewer inspections are potentially required. He’ll explain how to do that, too.
Listen: How To Optimize QC Inspections & Use Preventive Measures To Get Better Quality Results?
Watch: Video on YouTube
There are more episodes to come, so remember to rate us and subscribe! You can find us on:
If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to give us a 5* rating and share it with your network if you enjoy listening!
A final prototype has been approved and the foreign company’s next step is to go into mass production with the Chinese manufacturer. This is known as transitioning to manufacturing. Here’s how the process works…
Continue reading “Transitioning to Manufacturing from Product Development | 2 Options”
![How to Reduce Your Product Return Rate [Podcast]](https://artbyraksha.sofeast.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/How-to-Reduce-Your-Product-Return-Rate-Podcast.jpeg)
Our head of New Product Development, Andrew Amirnovin, joins Adrian from the team to explain what the product return rate is, why customers return products, how to reduce the risk of returns during the new product design and development phases, and what to do if a product starts getting returned.
If you manufacture and import products you don’t want too many returns as they can be costly in warranty claims, redevelopment, time, and damage to your brand’s reputation.
Listen: Your Product Return Rate & How To Control It?
Watch: Video on YouTube
There are more episodes to come, so remember to rate us and subscribe! You can find us on:
If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to give us a 5* rating and share it with your network if you enjoy listening!
Many manufacturers utilize injection molding for the production of their plastic enclosures and components. When working with the right company, China tooling tends to be the right blend of quality, low cost, and relatively high speed. That’s why many importers get their tooling fabricated in China, even when production is set to take place abroad.
It is particularly common for plastic injection molds.
There are reasons to do it this way rather than getting the tooling made in your country of production, but also some risks, too. Let’s take a look…
Continue reading “Buy China Tooling For Plastic Production Abroad? (Benefits & Risks)”
