Everybody knows the importance of a product, so we have been striving to work out higher quality product to cater our market. However most of time, we failed to obtain good quality products from our contract manufacturing partners because of many reasons. In factor, there are some critical rules when you develop and manufacture a product. As a professional contract manufacturer with years of experience, here below we would like to share our skills on how to produce high quality products.
Good Product Design
First of all, every product starts a good design, and no one can produce quality products without a reasonable product design. At this stage, the product designer must consider everything carefully about product function, rendering, fitting, material, using condition, and packaging. Prior to moving forward to manufacturing stage, we must make prototypes to validate if our design exists any mistakes or imperfections(normally, we should make 1~3 rounds of engineering prototypes). In this way, we can easily find out some potential failures and correct them quickly. Otherwise it’s costly and time-waste to make engineering change and mold modifications when production process. This is why we should put high attention to detect and optimize our product design.
Define Product Quality and Test Criteria
After design work is finalized, we should work with a quality engineer to define our product quality requirement. Certainly the quality engineer must participate the whole product design process so that he can understand the design intention completely. And prepare a written quality document for each relative person(perhaps for QC inspector, workers, contract manufacturers).
If possible, those quality document should clearly clarify product function, assembly requirement, test criteria, packaging method, cosmetic, and shipping marks as well. Ensure each manufacturing process will meet our design intention as same as possible.
Working with a Right Contract Manufacturer
It’s critical to choose a right contract manufacturer when you are going to out-source a custom product manufacturing service. A reliable contract manufacturer can deliver your high quality product with reasonable price. However a worse manufacturer might lead your project on high risk and you will loose customer and your market.
However it’s not easy to find out a suitable contract manufacturer with high quality, on-time delivery, good service, and reasonable cost. Because most of manufacturing companies cares more about profit better ever than others. You can either obtain a manufacturer by world-mouth(your friends introduced you), or you source a manufacturer by yourself. Here below are some skills to work with them:
- Require a factory visit and evaluate the system in person.
- Ask them for reference customer
- If possible, ask them for similar project experience.
- List out your product requirement and sign up a golden sample
- Order from engineering building, pilot run, and mass production process.
Set up Standard of Operation(SOP)
Most of time, Even thought you have clarified your quality requirements and signed golden sample as well, but some of contract manufacturers still can’t completely provide the desired products as you needed. In this condition, you should work with your manufacturer for a SOP(standard of operation), which clearly list out each process, operation method, self-inspection criteria. If possible, you should ask your manufacturer to conduct a product training for your products, so that all of workers will understand your product knowledge better, and avoid unnecessary mistakes and defects to happen.
Process Inspection and QA Inspection
Process inspection is an instant quality control measure during production process. It can detect and fix manufacturing defects or mistakes immediately after found them. And it greatly improve productivity. Normally, the process inspector should monitor each work station every 1~2 hours, and lot inspection for dimensions, cosmetic, and sub-assembly function. Ensure each work station runs correctly and smoothly. After final product is finished, QA inspector need to check out full products including product, packaging, label, and shipping marks. Making sure we will deliver correct products to our clients.