My supplier visit in Shenzhen showed me something scary about quality control

I went to a small parts factory in Shenzhen last month to check on an order of packaging inserts. Place looked clean on the surface, but I noticed their testing station was empty. No one was actually checking the thickness of the cardboard before it went to the cutting machine. I asked the foreman about it and he said they only test the first batch of the day. That means the other 5000 units could be totally off spec and nobody would know. I had to stop the line and demand a random sample check every hour. Turns out about 12% of the middle-run pieces were too thin and would have collapsed under product weight. How many of you actually visit your overseas suppliers in person to verify their QC process?

2 comments

2 Comments

dixon.iris7d ago

Funny how that same attitude shows up everywhere, not just in factories. I see the same shortcut thinking at the grocery store when they don't rotate the stock, or at the mechanic who says "it's probably fine" instead of actually checking. People just assume the middle of the process will take care of itself and only look at the start or the end. It's like everyone forgot that the stuff in between is what actually makes or breaks the whole thing. You really can't trust that someone else is watching the details unless you go see it with your own eyes.

ellis.susan7d ago

Guess they figured the cardboard would just magically thicken itself halfway through the run. Nothing like paying for 5000 pieces of useless cardboard to make you really appreciate those random spot checks.