As China's sewing product-related industries are getting so mature in the past few years, many advanced types of machinery and the newest technology are actually applied in China's factories. And many of the textile machine suppliers are locally made except in very high-end fields. And textile Co2 laser cutting machine is one of the above mentioned Made-In-China machinery.
Due to the very mature and low-cost glass Co2 laser tube technology invented by China suppliers, this machine's price dropped significantly compared with traditional metal Co2 tube. And in many of China's garments, plush toys, shoes, home textile, embroidery, digital printing, sign and advertising factories, and workshops, such a laser cutting machine is necessary due to its unique function, high stability, and low investment.
So more and more overseas sewing product manufacturers start to choose to import this machine from China. According to China Custom's Data Report, in the Year 2019, China exported laser cutting machine under the Hscode of 84561100 (laser machine) has achieved 1300 Million USD. In the difficult 2020, this figure reached 777 Million USD by October.
But as you may know very clear that there are so many different suppliers in China, and who you choose from, the good and bad, to work with would not be an easy job. Especially during this time, you may not be able to come to China and visit the factory yourself.
Ultimately, besides the professional presentation and clear and reliable communication with the sales from the supplier, the following are the 10 essential points of the quality audit checklist of the suppliers you need to conduct to ensure that your supplier and their factory's operations can produce your product to your expected levels of quality, as well as ensure compliance in your product's destination market.
1. Make Sure You Are Dealing Directly with Manufacturer
Check if the supplier's English website and product brochures are professionally presented. Generally for machinery, you better work directly with manufacturers other than trade companies, as machines are composed of hundreds of spare parts and require after-sale maintenance and repairs. Working directly with manufacturers would make the after-sale service easier and more direct.
But many China manufacturers are not that easy to cooperate with due to a lack of professional overseas sales and service teams. Checking their English website and brochure would be a good choice to identify if the manufacturer having a professional sales and marketing team, you can easily communicate firstly.
Check their website and determine if their main promoted product is the right machine you are looking for. Mostly one manufacturer won't be able to make every kind of different machines by themselves, but very possible their main promoted products would come directly from them.
Verifying the manufacturer having an export license or not. If not, you may need to have your own trading company running all the export process. If yes, it will save you a lot of time and trouble.
Ask the sales to give you a factory tour during their daily working time without pre-notification. If you are dealing with a trading company, generally they won't work together with the factory, and it would be a big problem for them to satisfy this request. But if they can offer you a factory tour immediately, very good, let's check the following.
2. Ask for An Online Factory Tour without Pre-Notification
Nowadays, in China, generally, you can spend thousands of RMB to get all the factory quality management certifications you may need like ISO 9001, FDA, or even CE. These documents are essential for meeting your local importing customs demand, but not enough for a good supplier's decision.
Request for live broadcasting with the sales to have a tour of the factory. Touring the full factory is a basic and vital part of the overall quality audit process. A walk-through reveals the current operations and environment of the factory. During the tour, you will find out the general production facilities, environment, QC, packaging, and storage areas. Visit the factories with your own eyes, and here are some questions and perspectives you may need to keep in mind when taking the tour.
Do They Have Their Own R&D Capability?
Your supplier having a professional engineer team would be essential for you. Your clients may have various demands and need you to provide a customized model for their special product. If your supplier can provide such a design job for you, it would gain you many advantages and help you win the business compared with your local competitors.
If your supplier is a China high-tech enterprise, it would mean something to you. So check the details of the patents the factory holds and check some of their irregular product photos or working videos and their lead time for a customized product even if you don't really have such kind of special design needs. Whether the supplier having the design capability is the key point.
Do They Have a Sample Room?
If yes, it would mean a lot to you. It would be effortless to make the sample test for your clients and help you a lot during the remote after-sale service support. Very possible that you may encounter machine problems not mentioned in the operation manual, and if it happens, all you need to do is to make the call. Their service engineers can easily help you by taking out their smartphone and shooting one operation videos for you right beside the machine in the sample room.
Is Their Factory Clean and Organized?
Your first impression generally means something. Leave all the other QC audit procedures aside. Firstly check if their factory floor is clean and the machine production assembly area is neat or not.
Do They Have an ERP System?
For you, you only need to ask for checking their machine BOM sheet. If they can show you, your machine delivery time would be highly guaranteed, which is very, very important at this special time as the container is getting more difficult to order. If the supplier cannot meet their promised delivery time, it would get you into big trouble.
Do They Have a QC System?
Ask for their during production QC checklist sheet. If they can provide, check the details. For one complete machine production, it would be divided into several different steps like module pre-assemble, circuit board assemble, machine main body assemble, after-production adjustment, aging, and package preparation. If their checklist includes all these during production control points, the machine quality is also highly guaranteed.
Are their employees busy and organized? Checking whether one company is robust, you can partly check from their employee's working attitude. A supplier's organizational structure can tell you much about their ability to effectively communicate with buyers, process orders, and conduct themselves professionally. Ask for saying hi to your salesperson's team members is a good option.
8. Check If Factory Spend Money on Local China Exhibitions
Check with the factory if they attend any local exhibitions and what machine they are exhibiting to check if they are professional about the machine you are looking for and provide after-sale service. If they regularly attend local China exhibitions and market their own brand, then highly possible to a reliable partner to work with. Because even in China, exhibitions cost a lot of money, and if they invest in exhibitions, they must cherish their brand, and after-sale service will be guaranteed.
There are two different business models for machine manufacturers doing business in China.
The first one is simple. They don't have their sales team, and they only do OEM for other factories. The factory's boss is generally competent and can do all the sales, purchasing accounting, and sometimes the assembly job. They don't provide after-sale service. You can get very cheap machines from them. But that may be the only advantage you can get. Very possible, their company is tiny and lacks the engineering team and after-sale service team, and also the QC management system of the factory is poor. This type of supplier can not guarantee both machine quality and delivery time. Don't expect too much from these kinds of suppliers. If you are very professional with the laser machine and can take care of all the machine maintenance by yourself, then no worry, you can choose.
The second one is more complicated. They have their own brand, and some will do OEM for other brands, and some don't. If you have your own brand in China market, you must have an after-sale service team providing local on-site installation and maintenance service to their end-users. Machine quality and technology need to keep upgraded due to the increasing demands from end-users.
And currently, possible China factories have higher requirements than their overseas competitors about the machine productivity and stability and the promptness of the after-service response time because all the raw material and workforce cost are getting higher in China, and they need to enhance their production efficiency and maintain their competitiveness in the international market.
And one key promotion channel for these kinds of suppliers is local exhibitions. Though investment is high, they can find some new client groups and establish their brand reputation among the end-users.
So make sure the partner you are cooperating with is the latter one. Don't just listen to sales how good their after-sale service is. Check how much money they spend on local branding and marketing.
9. Clarify Machine and Spare Part Warranty Terms in Advance
Many Chinese manufacturers have a bad habit of doing whatever they can to avoid honoring the warranty terms. Thus, it would help if you clarified with suppliers in advance how they would settle warranty claims.
Firstly check with suppliers the consumable spare parts for the laser cutting machine and how long the warranty time is, and how much for the replacement.
For the glass tube textile Co2 laser cutting machine, the only consumable spare part is the glass laser tube, which generally will need replacement after 2 years of usage. And a 100W glass tube's warranty time is generally about 10 months. If the laser tube got broken within warranty time, generally sending the damaged laser tube back to China for examination is time-consuming and meaningless.
The only viable way to settle warranty claims is by sending images and videos and documenting the tube's damages. And responsible supplier would take responsibility to give you one free extra tube. But at this time, it would cost you huge money to courier the tube to you separately. So the best way is to wait for your next machine to come together or ask for a refund if you or your friends have an RMB account.
Besides the extra glass tube, buying some other spare parts for backup is a necessity. In some cases, the spare part itself is cheap, but the supplier won't cover the air freight cost, not to mention import duties and other taxes. And replacement part deliveries also take plenty of time, and a standstill in production can cost a lot.
Thus, you must maintain a spare parts storage that keeps you running until the supplier has delivered a replacement. Recommended backup spare parts list would include a glass tube, laser power supply, focal lens, reflective mirror, and limitation sensor. All very cheap, but the machine would stop without replacement.
10. Ask If They Have Local Users You Can Visit or Give A Call
Check if locally they have clients you can talk to check their machine quality and after-sale service. If they don't, ask for clients from other countries is also a good choice. Ask for at least two references or more if possible. And ask for their end-users' contact if possible. Because if an end-user can have good feedback regarding their machine, it is a strong signal that their machine is easy to operate and can provide prompt online remote service assistance.
Importing machines from China always comes with some risk, and even the longtime cooperated supplier may have some inner this or that problem in the future. So spending some time looking for backup suppliers is always recommended.
Especially in 2021 still we don’t know when situation can get better and when we can travel freely. It is truly not easy to find a reliable supplier, but following the above-recommended checklist would ease your job and lower many potential risks. And in turn, after all the effort you make, once you identify one good partner, ou will help boost each others' business, and a brighter future is waiting ahead.