Knight methods: -7 steps you must know find the best supplies-[Take metal stamping parts as an example – ]

Are you attend many professional exhibitions each year?
Are you still place big quantity orders to trading companies?
In your industry are you feel more dog-eat-dog?
Are you want to find a good living space with your business?

During your procurement process from abroad, you once met less or more problems? No matter how carefully you surveyed your manufacturer in China, at last, you found many of your competitor’s price lower than you? or your quality is not as good as your competitors? Many of my customers complaint it in front of me, and ask me what the reasons, so I wrote this article to reveal it.

My customer gave their Chinese factory’s information to me. After I researched it, they are not a real factory, they are just trading companies.

This article will tell you the best way to find a reliable sheet metal die stamping parts factory, or deep drawing factory or any other factories  in other industries. Why I take find a stamped parts mfg as an example? Reasons: in this industry is more difficult to find real manufacturers, please do not worry, after today, you have my Knights methods- 7 steps find the best supplies, and there no longer other barriers in front you, which include the following steps:

1: -You should know different sheet metal stamping processes to do different part.
2: -China labor cost distribution-what city is the best one?
3: -China company how to naming their factory and how to use their name rule to find them?
4: -How to pick out the best one from your potential numerous China suppliers? Why less and less people do not look for suppliers on China’s B2B platform-Alibaba and “Made in China”?
5: -The ideal supplier is you!
6: -Except for quality certification, how to verify your China manufacturer if they can meet your quality requirements?
7: -Best supplier should service like this.

Please kindly share this post so that more audience in a need could be reached, and your favor will also be served as an incentive for me to share more of my expertise in this platform.

No.1 Knight method :-You should know different manufacture technology to do different parts

Only you choose the right production method, otherwise your parts will be expensive made, so you should learn technology form workers, your suppliers. If you do not want quality and service problem along with your whole procurement experience, you can only compare prices again and again. Anyway, you should professional in your industry.

Maybe you can find many data of China labor cost distribution on the internet, but you are difficult to find these data against China’s heavy industry, especially about metal stamping parts supplies in China, machining parts, sheet metal components industry. So I list some information as follows for reference, meanwhile hope more professional people can share more detailed information in this field.

No.2.1 – Cheapest cities for different industries for reference as follows:

No.2.1.1 – Building metal materials:
Shandong province, Hebei province are China’s biggest production base, and these two provinces also China’s biggest fastener manufacturing base.

No.2.1.2 – Light industrial production:
Zhejiang, Ningbo, Shaoxing are China’s biggest manufacturing base

No.2.1.3 – Electronics production:
Guangzhou, Shenzhen are China’s biggest manufacturing base for electronics production, Chongqing is the biggest Automobile metal stamping manufacturing base, Changan group is the biggest automobile corporation in China which also located at Chongqing.

No.2.1.4 – Furniture:
Shunde district, Guangdong province, China is the biggest manufacturer base, but many of their stamping hardware was bought from Chongqing and Chengdu.

No.2.1.5 – Home appliance and kitchen appliance:
Chengdu, Chongqing are the biggest manufacturing base, then you know why Haier production base located at Chongqing, which is the biggest refrigerator manufacturer in China, and Gree Electric Appliances Inc. have their manufacturing base located at Chongqing.

No.2.1.6 – Extrusion aluminum material:
Foshan district, Guangdong province is the biggest manufacturing base in China.

No.2.1.7 – Doors and windows:
Foshan district, Guangdong province, China’s 85% door and windows company located here.

No.3 Knight methods: -China company how to naming their factory and how to use their name rule to find them?

The China company last name are in summary as follows:

Co.,LTD
Limited Corporation
Manufacturer
Factory
Industry& Trade
Industry and trade
Trading company
Commercial company
Machinery Co.,Ltd
Business

If their suffix named trading company, commercial company, business company, they are traders, if their suffix are rest name, maybe a factory, you should continue to research it, you can use my unique skill to verify it in my last post, or you continue to read, there have other’s simple ways to check it.

No.3.1 – How to use their name rule to find them on google?

For example, you want to find a China Punching parts factory, you search in google like this:

Stamping parts factory at Chongqing China or stamping parts at Shenzhen China or China Chongqing Stamping parts manufacturer or China stamping factory Co.,Ltd or China stamping parts industry & trade, it means you add someRestricted keywords. otherwise, you can’t find what you want, or they are not a real factory.Above just one way, you should have your own search plans through many times of testing until you get what you want. Different plans will have different results.

For example, China Shenzhen fine blanking Co.,Ltd or group or industry& trader, or China Ningbo fine blanking parts Co.,Ltd. You will find completely different factories located at different places of China. Next step you should continue to verify your results if they are a real factory or just a trading company.

No. 4 Knight methods: -How to pick out the best one from your potential numerous China suppliers?

No.4.1 – Why less and less people do not look for suppliers on China’s B2B platform-Alibaba and “Made in China”?

Now I see many articles on the internet say trading companies better than factories, and many people after reading their article and choose to cooperate with them, but at last few of my customer’s send me message to complaint it and ask me help them solve their headache, for example: ask me help them recover payment chasing money. I wrote this article aim to remind more people do not jump to the same snare again. My other post described how to distinguish a trader and manufacturer, if you have interesting, you can read it: https://sipxmach.com/manufacturers-or-trading-companies/

Now I tell you another simple and supper applicable skill about how to pick out the best one from your potential numerous China suppliers. No matter they are a factory or trading company, which is only through their official website to verify their ability. From my customer reply, they said the accuracy rate around 75%.

No.4.1.1 – 5 steps Simplest ways to verify factory or trading company

N.4.1.1.1- Check their official website “about” page:

if this page has their team member pictures, if yes, use their contact page email or mobile number to find their Linkedin ID, to check if one of the people on their official website same with the Linkedin portrait.

No.4.1.1.2 – Use google search their website factory address, or directly check on Google Map.

No.4.1.1.3 – 90% factory will show their production ability on their official website, for example, plant picture, production line, equipment picture, equipment list and so on.

No.4.1.1.4 – Check their quality certification
In fact, most certification can buy from the third party. Besides quality certificate, the most important thing is checking their quality documents, you can send a mail to ask her to send you within 24 hours, most times they couldn’t prepare a new in so short time. Take an example, a stamping company said they have TS16949 certification, you can ask him to give you a similar part Control plan, PFMEA, MSA, if they refuse to give you then you can judge they are not a real company with real TS16949 quality control system.

No.4.1.1.5 Check their company product showcase
if their company product catalog included all kinds of products they can do and declared all of them are made in own house, I think they are 100% a trading company. For example, forging parts, stamping parts, machining parts, die casting parts, plastic parts are made in his own company. But it also has an exception, for example, they are real factory and commercial trader, some parts they produced in their own factory, some parts outsourced, you should continue to research it.

Above are my skills for you screen China factories or trading companies, and it is effective for most machinery industry customizing parts, hope you are interesting it and it can help you find a good supplier for you.

No.4.1.2 – How to find the professional supplier for your particular part supplier on Google?

If you have a particular product, and you must have a professional manufacturer to do for you, I think you should use the following method to search on Google:
Brand name+ keywords+ factory+ location, this sequence can be changed, and the brand name most time is your competitor name and have a good reputation. You also can do not add the brand name, I just tell you an idea, you should according to your condition to adjust it.

For example, you want to find the water heater shell factory in China, and the punching parts factory must have experience in this field.

You can put these words into google: THOMAS(Brand name) water heater shell(particular part name) manufacturer in China or “THOMAS water heater shell stamping parts in China” or “ China Water heater cover stamping manufacturer”.

No.4.2 – Why less and less people search suppliers on B2B platform like Alibaba and “made in China”?

No.4.2.1 – First of all, we should know google how to earn money and B2B how to get traffic.

1. We all know Google main earn money method is google advertising. Google advertising charge per click, but this B2B platform through developing more members to join in their SEO team and get free traffic from Google, afterward, they sell their traffic to more people, so google decreased B2B platform page rank
2. Alibaba is the Chinese biggest B2B platform, but now he is trying to change to B2C, because B2C can earn more.
3. Most of the registered companies on B2B platform like Alibaba and “Made in China” are trading companies, customers cannot find direct factories from them, so fewer and fewer people look for manufactures through China’s B2B platform. This is the main reason

No.4.2.2 – Example to verify best factories difficult to find on B2B platform

If you do not believe it, you can search a few factories on Alibaba. Take an example:  you search “deep drawn parts” on Alibaba, you will find most of their pictures on the first page are not deep drawing sheet metal parts. Are you think a professional factory will make these small mistakes? The answer obviously is no.

A real factory will have their official website, but around half of machinery companies on Alibaba or “Made in China” do not have a formal website. Are you believe a real factory to do international business isn’t have an official website? But the truth is all manufacturers to do international business on the B2B platform have a professional official website. In other words, if a factory has a shop on B2B platform, they are 100% have an official website on Google, if they only have B2B shop, they are 100% a trading company or Soho.

No.5. Knight methods: -The ideal supplier is you!

From the above 4 steps I think you have a list of China stamping parts, Die casting parts, CNC machining parts companies at hand. Now you can send your drawings, quantity and other more detailed information about your requirements to their mail to check if they can do these parts.

In order to help you check what they offered you after a long time, you’d better each inquiry have a special inquiry number.

No.5.1 – A good example of RFQ mail description for reference as follows:

Your RFQ should have detailed information as more as possible, drawing, quantity, and the limited offer time they all are should be included, your more details they will think it is a real order in the future, and they will pay more attention to it.

After you get your potential supplier’s offers and chose one of them plan to cooperate in the following days, but you also would better to tell others what reasons why you rejected them. Because every company in China have their own consummate skills in a special field or product.

No.5.2 – The best method to keep relationship with potential suppliers

This is one of the reasons why some trading company can survive in so fierce competition marketing, they familiar with what their location company can do what products are better than others. You should establish a good relationship with different factories, although for this product they have been obsoleted from your potential list. Generally speaking, if they offered 3 times for different items, you also did not place an order to them, they will refuse to offer you again. They will think you just want to get prices from them as a document to negotiate with their competitors. If you replied them what reasons you rejected him, they will continue to believe you, meanwhile, every punching parts company have their own special technology, next time you get from them maybe the best price.

Though I have shared several fragments of know-how in my previous posts

https://sipxmach.com/why-your-china-supplier-quality-bad/
https://sipxmach.com/the-best-qc/

I do hope to run through basic knowledge in a more systematic way for those who are interested in this topic. The core documents about Quality are PPAP, PPAP core documents: Control plan, PFMEA. TS16949 and ISO9001 are the same as these documents

No.7. Knight methods: -Best supplier should service like this.

Maybe you have many China factory once sent their certificates to you like CE, PPAP, ISO9001 and so on, but when you cooperated with them, you also have a quality headache, what the reasons? Because in China most certification can get very easy, some trading companies just need to pay certain money then can get a certificate. So, only see their certification is not enough, you should know a good supplier how to control the quality, and if they pay 100% attention to your products

No.7.1 – An Example about how to verify supplier quality control and power of problem-solving abilities.

Case description:
Stainless SS steel  pipe from a Holland customer, the drawing marked thread type is G 1/4″.Mail content as the following picture show:

No.7.2 – After I checked all different standard, I found all G1/4″ pipe is a straight thread, so I wrote a mail to the customer to confirm it

Through many emails discussing, my customer insist G1/4″ is a conical thread and agreed to delivery me a conical thread taps die.

After I got his taps die, I asked my worker make 10pcs sample immediately, but I found the thread also straight, generally most suppliers will make batch production through customer’s own tooling. At this time generally, no people will doubt there will have further problem again,because of all run according to their own tooling. But I do not do like this, In order to avoid any mistake, I bought a new conical thread “pass through and stop gauge” as the following picture. And send two kinds of samples out by FedEx express immediately.

No.7.3 – The mails which I discussed with my customer – now we are friends

No.7.3 – After I sent my mail for around 24 hours, I got my customer reply as follows

Right now, I am 100% assure my gauge is right and we can’t use customer’s tap die again, in order to meet my customer’s delivery time, I start to mass production, during the production, I also sent him some pictures. After finished half of the order around 500pcs, my customer tell me we should send it out immediately, I sent a mail to him as follows before the express pick the package.

This is quality control, and how to work together with your customer to service customer’s customer.

Are you interesting the Knight methods-7steps you must know find the best supplies? please share the post, it will incentive me to share more of my expertise in my blog

Now 5G was under the way to bring big convenient to people, though video also a good way to find your potential supplier

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MISEzZfc2Pg&t=2s/