China Manufacturing Decoded
 

China Manufacturing Decoded

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Join Renaud Anjoran, Founder & CEO of Sofeast, in this podcast aimed at importers who develop their own products as he discusses the hottest topics and shares actionable tips for manufacturing in China & Asia today! WHO IS RENAUD? Renaud is a French ISO 9001 & 14001 certified lead auditor, ASQ certified Quality Engineer and Quality Manager who has been working in the Chinese manufacturing industry since 2005. He is the founder of the Sofeast group that has over 200 staff globally and offers services (QA, product development & engineering, project management, Supply Chain Management, product compliance, reliability testing), contract manufacturing, and 3PL fulfillment for importers and businesses who develop their own products and buyers from China & SE Asia. WHY LISTEN? We‘ll discuss interesting topics for anyone who develops and sources their products from Asian suppliers and will share Renaud‘s decades of manufacturing experience, as well as inviting guests from the industry to get a different viewpoint. Our goal is to help you get better results and end up with suppliers and products that exceed your expectations!

Episodes

Exploring Plastic Injection Molding Pilot Runs

Friday May 03, 2024

Friday May 03, 2024

Renaud hosts and is joined by Sofeast Group senior engineer, Paul Adams, to discuss how to go from a design to mass-producing your plastic injection molded parts, first following the proven pre-production pilot run approach to ensure risks are kept to a minimum. You'll learn what should be optimized and what should not be skipped, even if sometimes getting to market sooner seems tempting.

 

Show Sections

00:00 - Greetings and introduction

01:49 - Why is an injection molding pilot run important?

05:05 - What are the steps involved?

09:53 - Why 'metal safe' is your goal after the trials.

12:39 - The supplier still needs to optimize the tooling 

25:01 - Optimizing the injection mold press (machine).

34:55 - Keeping records of parameter settings helps to control the process.

39:04 - Wrapping up.

 

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The Rise Of The Dragon: Exploring China’s Technology Dominance

Friday Apr 26, 2024

Friday Apr 26, 2024

Today Adrian and Andrew Amirnovin, our reliability and testing head, look at some of China's recent technology successes, what fuels China's tech dominance, and how technology is caught up in the middle of the US-China trade war. 

 

Show Sections

00:00 - Greetings and introduction.

06:18 - What is fuelling China's tech dominance?

12:40 - The success story of Huawei.

20:32 - Other Chinese tech success stories.

23:30 - Is Chinese technology a privacy risk for users?

26:22 - How does the US-China relationship affect technology?

33:43 - New technologies coming out of China to be aware of.

36:10 - More semiconductor manufacturing to happen in the USA?

37:16 - Wrapping up and closing questions.

 

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10 Common Problems From Chinese Suppliers (& How You Can Deal With Them)

Friday Apr 19, 2024

Friday Apr 19, 2024

Adrian and Renaud get together to talk about 10 common problems that companies with Chinese manufacturing suppliers often face, AND how you can deal with them. Hopefully, you are not one of the unlucky ones, but being prepared with the knowledge to avoid issues is always helpful!

 

Show Sections

00:00 - Greetings and introduction

03:22 - 1. If your supplier refuses to ship the goods you paid for.

09:40 - 2. Your manufacturer tries to force you to accept poor quality that you’re uncomfortable with.

16:00 - 3. If the supplier has failed to prepare export packaging of your products for your scheduled quality inspection.

21:41 - 4. When your supplier has disappeared with your tooling and/or inventory.

25:33 - 5. Your supplier won’t provide important supply chain information.

29:30 - 6. You catch your supplier selling your products as their own!

34:59 - 7. Your ‘factory’ turns out to be a trading company.

39:00 - 8. Coping with an unexpected price increase from suppliers.

41:50 - 9. Your current supplier blocks the transfer of your mold tooling to a new supplier.

46:09 - 10. Worries about keeping sensitive product information secure.

48:26 - Wrapping up.

 

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Quality Fade: Silent AND Deadly!

Friday Apr 12, 2024

Friday Apr 12, 2024

Adrian and Renaud discuss Quality Fade. This bad practice from suppliers sees them put their profits before your product quality, but the big problem is that you may not even know it is happening as it's a gradual process where quality declines over time, bit by bit.

Are you at risk, how do you identify it, and what can you do to combat it? We reveal all in this episode!

 

Show Sections

00:00 - Greetings and introduction

02:27 - What is Quality Fade?

09:25 - Is it still happening today?

12:15 - Actions to help you avoid quality fade.

18:30 - If you are a victim of quality fade, how can you catch it?

23:44 - Examples of products affected by quality fade.

28:51 - Ongoing reliability testing: Warn the supplier, or do it secretly?

35:28 - Wrapping up.

 

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PCBA Protection: How to Care for the Heart of your Electronic Product

Friday Apr 05, 2024

Friday Apr 05, 2024

On this episode of the China Manufacturing Decoded Podcast, Adrian hosts and is joined by Andrew, our reliability and testing head who is going to explain why the PCBA in your electronic product is critical, and how to protect it both physically and through product design.

 

Show Sections

00:00 - Greetings and introduction.

01:45 - What is the PCB and why is it so important?

03:04 - How and why do we protect the PCB?

04:40 - Conformal coating.

08:51 - Other PCB protection options.

14:14 - The process of protecting a product from the inside out.

18:42 - The costs of protecting PCBs.

23:44 - The coating process.

25:05 - Wrapping up.

 

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Traceability In Manufacturing: Far More Than Just A Safety Net

Friday Mar 29, 2024

Friday Mar 29, 2024

Adrian and Renaud are talking about traceability for manufacturers which provides a detailed record of how the products are manufactured and the supply chain, from raw materials to finished products. Having this mindset and system can help you to reduce risks and deal with problems quickly by pinpointing where they arise. It can also help you be a more compliant business. Plenty of benefits, but it takes a cultural shift to put in place, so Renaud will explain how.

 

Show Sections

00:00 - Greetings and introduction

03:53 - Traceability takes a conscious effort to put in place.

06:07 - Introducing traceability and the difference between batch level and unit level.

12:06 - Benefits.

24:01 - Is it expensive to run a traceability initiative?

25:35 - How does traceability relate to product passports in the EU?

27:44 - How to implement it?

35:41 - How to audit a supplier's traceability system?

40:47 - Wrapping up.

 

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Boeing's Serious Issue: Bad Manufacturing Habits

Friday Mar 22, 2024

Friday Mar 22, 2024

Air travel requires an extremely high level of safety, so it's very embarrassing for Boeing that they have been dogged by quality and reliability issues lately, resulting in a near-disaster on a brand new Alaska Airlines 737 Max.

Renaud and Paul look at Boeing's recent troubles, based on information from news reports, that seem to have been caused by bad manufacturing habits such as accepting sub-standard parts from suppliers without pushing them to improve, not fixing issues in-process and 'leaving them for later,' an over-reliance on inspections and rework when planes were complete, and a business culture which placed financial results above quality.

They also explain the best practices that good manufacturers follow to reduce risks as your key takeaway from the episode.

 

Show Sections

00:00 - Greetings and introduction - where is Boeing going wrong?

06:15 - What do good factories do to avoid problems like travelled work?

10:08 - Investing time for training suppliers in the upstream supply chain to reduce quality risks

18:24 - What can we learn about dealing with in-process issues from the automotive industry?

27:14 - Why a focus on inspection and rework later increases risks.

33:32 - Summary: Good manufacturers' best practices.

37:46 - Wrapping up.

 

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Manufacturer's & Buyer's Risks in China: Mitigation and Insurance Tips

Friday Mar 15, 2024

Friday Mar 15, 2024

Our CEO Renaud is joined by Marc Burban and Amanda Han, insurance brokers from Asian Risks Management Services. We get advice from these two China insurance experts, explore the typical risks that manufacturers and buyers in China face, and learn how you can use insurance and risk management to mitigate them. For anyone manufacturing in China, this information will help you understand your best options moving forward and how an insurance broker can assist you in making the right choices.

 

Show Sections

00:00 - Greetings and introduction.

01:54 - What are the major risks that companies who are manufacturing or buyers having products manufactured in China need to keep in mind?

06:04 - How can these risks be mitigated?

10:02 - How does insurance work?

15:07 - Why national safety regulatory compliance is not necessarily enough to save a business when the worst happens?

20:30 -  What kind of insurance policies are available in China for manufacturers and buyers?

25:12 - Changing EU liability laws will mean product liability insurance will be even more important in Europe.

26:34 - Why work with an insurance broker instead of going direct?

31:35 - Amanda introduces Asian Risks Management Services & wrapping up.

 

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Chinese e-Bike/Scooter Battery Fire Risks Are No Joke! (Feat.Clive Greenwood)

Friday Mar 08, 2024

Friday Mar 08, 2024

Renaud is joined by regular guest, Clive Greenwood, an international product compliance expert based in China. They talk about the growing risks of Li-ion batteries used in Chinese e-bikes and scooters amid many high-profile fires in China, deaths in the West, and grave warnings from the FDNY. Clive also makes suggestions about how legislation can change to improve safety moving forward.

As these personal vehicles become more popular and importers around the world source them from China, it pays to understand the risks...spoiler alert, they're no joke!

 

Show Sections

00:00 - Greetings and introduction.

03:57 - Looking at the risks of Li-ion batteries used in micro-mobility in China.

09:21 - What is the Chinese government doing to combat the dangers of batteries?

17:53 - What if you're buying e-bikes and scooters, or batteries for them, from China now?

21:22 - Does China need new battery regulations to make them safer, or to just enforce the current ones?

25:42 -  Safety tips for battery buyers.

28:46 - E-bikes and scooters are a new source of risk people need to adapt to.

33:01 - Wrapping up.

 

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Apple Vision Pro Cracking Up! Reliability Problems, So Soon? (BONUS)

Tuesday Mar 05, 2024

Tuesday Mar 05, 2024

In this bonus episode, our host and CEO Renaud is joined by our product reliability and durability expert, Andrew Amirnovin, to talk about the bad news for Apple that their much-hyped Vision Pro headset is cracking just weeks after being released to the public. They explore the durability problems rearing their heads only a month or so into the product's general release in early February 2024, based on information found in online news articles and videos.

 

Show Sections

00:00 - Introduction, what is the Vision Pro?

Apple's Vision Pro headset is an incredibly well-received augmented reality headset that earned rave reviews worldwide. It took more than 10 years to develop and is one of the most groundbreaking Apple products released in recent years.

02:29 - Uh-oh, cracks to the headset!

The external plastic layer, like a visor, is cracking in a straight line from the nose to the forehead on some models even though the customer didn't do anything like drop them. We don't know the percentage, so it's hard to ascertain what pattern there is, but these unsightly defects are not welcome in a device that costs over $3000+.

04:04 - How would an engineer start diagnosing this case?

Environmental or transportation conditions may cause a defect like this or it could even be the packaging placing some kind of stress on the wrong part of the visor that eventually results in the crack developing. It is fair to say that the plastic seems fragile.

Apple should accept field returns from customers and do a root cause analysis to identify the defect and its cause and then implement a corrective action plan.

06:40 - Is the return or repair policy straightforward? What should Apple customers do if they're affected?

Apple may need to clarify its returns or repair policy, as some customers have reported receiving different responses from Apple with some stores offering to repair or replace, and some refusing to take responsibility. With visor repairs costing $800, it seems sensible to at least invest in an AppleCare extended warranty for the device to reduce potential repair costs.

08:48 - Is it likely Apple's engineers missed this issue and never saw it during product testing and development?

It's hard to say, but was the visor that cracks added after most development and testing was done maybe for some reason? If so it may not have been tested (as much). If Apple doesn't fix this, and fast, it could damage their brand as this is such a high-profile release. The situation is similar to the problems they had with the Macbook 'Butterfly' keyboards in 2015/2016 which they replaced by returning to a scissor mechanism they then named the 'Magic' keyboard, although in those cases Apple replaced the defective keyboard (and sometimes added a new battery) for free.

11:29 - We all know that an iPhone is likely to suffer damage when dropped from 6ft, should we be surprised that the Vision Pro seems similarly fragile?

The Vision Pro does not seem very durable, the same as the iPhone. The majority of users put their iPhones in a protective case for exactly this reason.

An acceptable drop height for a mobile phone to withstand damage is about 1M, not 6ft. However the Vision Pro is meant to be worn on the face and is very front-heavy, so if it slips, it will likely fall from around 6ft. There is no protective case for the Vision Pro when it is in use unlike for phones, therefore, should it be durable enough to survive such a drop, especially for its price?

13:27 - Wrapping up.

 

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