The global financial crisis has oriented the business perspective towards delivering always the lower-cost products when maintaining high service and quality as per customer demand. In the manufacturing world, this means that outsourcing to skilled production centers overseas is the key priority now. If you are outsourcing your production unit, you need to set the importance of factory inspection first.
Reasons to conduct the factory audit?
There are several reasons to keep on top of the outsourcing unit to ensure the quality of the finished products and also meet the ethical demands of the increasingly aware customer base that doesn’t child labor or environmental damage.
China factory inspection process can be broken down into different stages:
Initial evaluation of the supplier
Before starting any business with any manufacturing company, it is good to know that how they work, ensure that they can deliver genuinely deliver on their promises. Many of the contacts may advertise themselves as they are representatives of a factory but they are actually the middlemen. Be aware of such a thing before making any contract.
Social compliance
An important component of delivering products to the wider market is ensuring that your suppliers can meet the necessary ethical and important environmental status best. Even many big companies with the established policies of using ethical sourcing can fail in factory audit.
Supply chain auditing
In your process of China factory inspection, supply chain auditing is very much important. You don’t just need to monitor your direct partner but you need to make sure that any sub-suppliers who are delivering the parts may meet your set standard. It is also important to ensure that any parts or any materials supplied by the chain are as promised as the initial agreements. Many companies use low quality cheaper part or toxic materials for manufacturing a product. Factory audit should cover such issues.
Production inspection
To save both qualities, time and effort don’t trust the receive samples of the manufacturing unit only. You can inspect a small quantity of product during the early manufacturing process to ensure that the initial processes are perfect and also inspecting the finished products before shipping can help you to take the corrective steps early. You need to send the inspectors to ensure that the rejected products are being destroyed and the corrective actions are taken as per your requirements.
Loading and shipping inspection if you have fragile and high-value goods, your inspection process will not stop at the factory only. You need to check the loading and shipping process also to ensure that the required quantity of the product is ready for shipping and loaded perfectly with perfect packaging so that it will not break or damage during the shipping process or it will not go missing. Factory inspection is the most important step for all the companies who are working with overseas manufacturing partners. It helps them to maintain the best of quality for each and every product to meet the customer’s requirements.
