合同制造中国 - 找到合适供应商的5个提示

中国合同制造是西方公司将其产品或组件外包外包的一种经济有效的方式。那不是全部。它还允许公司迅速将新产品带入市场，而不会浪费时间或其他资源。

If the contract manufacturing project is not handled well, however, businesses face the risk of damaging their financial health, goodwill and reputation. If you are planning on outsourcing manufacturing to China, here are five tips byChina sourcing experts确保您的项目成功。

1.在中国注册您的IP

Arguably, this is one of the most important things that companies can do even before they start looking for manufacturers in China.
Intellectual Property rightsinclude trademarks, design patents and copyrights. Often, customers from western countries skip this step as they are not familiar with the legal landscape concerning IP rights in China. But this is unwise if the IP rights of your product are important to your business because in China, the first company to register a trademark or patent is the first company to be awarded it never mind what the US or UK rights of that product are.

This means, if Company X has registered your trademark in China because you neglected to do so, your China manufactured products can be prevented from being exported because according to Chinese law you have infringed upon the IP rights of Company X.

除此之外,一旦你找到制造商等other things, you must get them to sign an NNN or non-disclosure, non-use, non-circumvention agreement to protect your IP rights. Remember, a US-style NDA will not work. Additionally, the NNN agreement must be written in Chinese and should be enforceable in a Chinese court. A strong contract damage provision in this agreement will deter your Chinese manufacturer from copying your products or components.

2.找到可靠的供应商

一旦照顾了重要的问题，例如注册IP权限，就需要开始寻找可靠的供应商。要简要介绍搜索，您必须首先确定所需的供应商。考虑诸如工厂规模，位置，生产能力，技术能力以及您是否希望工厂在做出此决定的同时为您制造等方面。一旦您清楚了您的“理想”供应商必须是什么样子，请开始长期列入供应商。

The obvious search routes are the internet, trade fairs and word of mouth. If you don’t mind the extra research you could also look at data sites such asImport Genius和datamyne这提供了几个国家的进出口贸易的可搜索数据库。搜索导入与您的类似产品的公司，并找出他们的供应商是谁。

Once you have a longlist of suppliers, you could whittle the list down further keeping your “ideal” supplier in mind. You’ll need to do this on the basis of more information, of course. This you can do by calling up their offices, emailing them or checking if they have websites. (Most large factories have started maintaining websites in English. But do remember that the majority do not.) Once you have a shortlist of about five suppliers, you MUST conduct a physical check. You or a representative such as a China sourcing agent must visit the factory to:

• Check if the factory actually exists和供应商实际上不是中间人或贸易公司。
• To assess whether the claims the potential suppliers have made during your enquiries are true.

3.Draw up a detailed OEM agreement

Once you have finalised a supplier, it’s time to draw up a detailed Original Equipment Manufacturer agreement. In this agreement, you must mention the minute details of your product’s specifications, leaving no room for interpretation. For instance, if the colour of your product is supposed to be red, specify the pantone number. Similarly, if your product is a bag, specify the amount of weight it is expected to hold. This agreement should also lay out payment terms, lead times, quality requirements, quantities, certification, ownership of tooling, dispute resolution and so on.

Most importantly, just like the NNN agreement mentioned earlier, this one too must be drafted to be enforceable in China and not in a western court, and it should be written in Chinese.

4.随身携带批准样品的副本

The contract manufacturing process may see a number of samples being made and tweaked before you approve of the final one. Ensure that you or your representatives in China as well as the factory have copies of the approved sample that they can refer to. It will help you ascertain whether the quality of each batch is consistent with the terms agreed upon and the approved sample. This is a small thing but it will prevent you a lot of stress later on.

5。Conduct regular quality control inspections

You may have a really strong OEM agreement with your contract manufacturer, but things can still go wrong and you’d want to prevent that from happening because IF things go wrong and you cite the agreement asking your Chinese manufacturer to fix it, the factory will STILL take time to make the necessary changes, which will push back lead time and delivery dates. You don’t want that happening because that means angry customers and messed up inventories. Therefore, conduct regular quality control inspections from a third party (your factory is expected to have its own internal QC system but that is different) that can be a company based in China that specifically conducts these checks for customers abroad or a sourcing agent who is handling your entire contract manufacturing process for you.