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Path: Sourcing News & Advice
>> Import from
China Advice >> Best practices for choosing the
right Chinese factory

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Best practices for choosing the right Chinese factory

Posted: November 24, 2014

by Renaud Anjoran

Maybe you are looking for a new Chinese factory and you are not sure how to
find a good one. You’d like to get inspiration from those companies that have
THE BEST supplier screening process.

Well, look no further than the car industry. A car assembler, say General
Motors or Volkswagen, has to decide on 1 supplier for each part of a new car —
and then they CANNOT change that supplier for the life of the car in
question.

Why can’t car manufacturers switch suppliers?

David Collins, consulting director at from CMC, explained to me why. Double-sourcing one part — let’s
say buying a seat from two suppliers — would require so much additional work and
testing that the final bill would approximate 500 million USD. Very heavy
testing is required by law, and 1 new part in a car would make the whole testing
process start again.

So having a backup supplier is impossible. That’s a very uncomfortable
situation. When a manufacturer has quality or delivery issues, the implications
for their customer (the car plant) are enormous. A downtime in a car factory
costs tens of thousands of dollars per minute.

In this situation, qualifying the suppliers and approving their parts is a
critical process. Picking a wrong supplier (which will deliver late, or deliver
poor quality) is extremely costly.

How do car manufacturers select the right
suppliers?

Car manufacturers use the PPAP (Production Part Approval Process) to quality each part
coming from outside suppliers. The PPAP includes quality
tools that are usually seen as particular to the auto industry, but that are
applicable in any industry — electronics, furniture, etc.

Now, let’s be realistic. The PPAP process is very heavy and involves a LOT of
documentation. It is very useful in bringing the risk of working with the wrong
supplier down, but should you go through all these steps? No.

What you should do is the 20% of the work that will get you 80% of the
results.

Here are the PPAP process steps:

Design Records

Authorized Engineering Change Documents

Customer Engineering Approval, if required

Design Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (DFMEA) applied in special
situations

Process Flow Diagram

Process Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (PFMEA)

Control Plan

Measurement Systems Analysis (MSA)

Dimensional Results

Records of Material / Performance Test Results

Initial Process Studies

Qualified Laboratory Documentation

Appearance Approval Report (AAR)

Sample Production Parts

Master Sample

Checking Aids

Customer-Specific Requirements

Part Submission Warrant (PSW)

How can importers get inspiration from the PPAP?

Among the above list, here are the tools every importer should try to apply
when selecting a new supplier for custom-made products:

Design Records

Authorized Engineering Change Documents

Design Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (DFMEA) if the design is a bit
complicated

Process Flow Diagram

Process Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (PFMEA)

And, once an order has been issued and the factory is willing to invest time
and energy in improving their processes and their organization, these steps
generally make sense:

Control Plan

Measurement Systems Analysis (MSA)

Dimensional Results

Initial Process Studies (including running small pilot batches at the rate
of mass production)

Master Sample

Checking Aids

What do you think?

Renaud
Anjoran has been managing his quality assurance agency (Sofeast Ltd) since 2006.
In addition, a passion for improving the way people work has pushed him to
launch a consultancy to improve factories and a web application to manage the
purchasing process. He writes advice for importers on qualityinspection.org.

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