Does Your Supplier Use Sub-Suppliers?

It has an inspection of the product that has revealed a problem with a component or material of your product that is not made by your provider? Does your provider using sub-suppliers for their goods?

When ordering a factory, we all like to think that the factory will make the entire article. We like to think that the same factory is the quality management of each process to ensure the item is made to our specifications.

 

The reality is most manufacturers only have the ability to make a couple of key processes of own manufacture. There may be components that do not have the necessary equipment to produce. And these parts are entrusted to various sub-suppliers. This increases the chances that defects will occur with each additional provider introduced. More processes between different plants mean more handling of your product and a greater chance that quality standards are not met.

How can you know if your ISP uses sub-suppliers?

The key to knowing if your product is made in a single vendor is working on what the team has its factory. This reveals that the components are able to do at home, and what other components that need to outsource. This can be done by yourself in your next visit to China, or to involve a third party to visit the factory and audit their production capacities.

When they are cause for concern Sub-Supplier?

If the factory has the capacity to do most of the major or important components of the house, and only based on the sub-suppliers of non-critical components, then there is not much to worry about.

Take, for example, a furniture factory making upholstered armchairs. It is hoped that the factory has the capacity to make major components such as wooden frame. We can also expect the same factory to be doing the cutting and sewing fabric, plus assembly and packaging of finished products. Do not expect the factory is able also manufacture plastic accessories such as handles.

 

However, if a factory does not have the ability to make key components of the house, this could be detrimental for product quality. In this case, the responsibility for quality management processes falls into a sub-suppliers of which you can have no knowledge.

Having once sent to a "manufacturer" bike audit, we found a factory with only a very basic assembly line, and unable to metalworking at all. In fact, this particular vendor was ordering all components from external suppliers and only the assembly and packaging of the finished product.

This type of situation can be very risky as product quality depends on the production capacities of sub-suppliers we are not in contact. If you have quality problems, it will be very difficult for them have improved in future orders as your provider has no direct control over the materials and components they receive from sub-suppliers.