Any consumer brand operator knows that navigating from product development to warehouse inventory audits is a highly specific process. 

Fortunately, at Factored Quality (FQ), we’re experts on all aspects of audits that founders and operations teams don’t have the capacity to worry about. And we’re going to outline all of them in this series. 

In Part 6, we unpack the ins and outs of manufacturing and sourcing. 

Let’s dive in.  

Overseas manufacturing without oversight is a risk

Let’s start with some simple definitions: 

• Manufacturing: making products on a large scale, often using industrial machinery. 
• Sourcing: obtaining components or materials from particular sources.

Manufacturing for American companies often happens abroad, which means there’s a certain amount of assumed risk. Companies are entrusting their inventions to overseas entities without:

1. Touring the facility
2. Seeing examples of other products they’ve produced
3. The ability to assess risks, damages and quality in real-time

Lacking boots on the ground and consistent involvement in the production process can harm your company, especially if you’ve already scheduled a product launch or invested a lot of money in testing out possible manufacturers. 

Your process partner, start to finish

The production timeline differs for every product – if you’ve already done the design work, the process will look very different than if you’re still in the ideation stage. 

Regardless of where you are on that timeline, once you’re prepared to move forward with manufacturers the FQ  team can help you get moving quickly. We assess your needs and recommend suppliers from our database of hundreds that we’ve already reviewed and vetted.

Working with experts in the field is critical because outsourcing production yourself can lead to costly mistakes. 

Our breadth of data and experience and network of pre-vetted production partners across industries insulates you from time waste and inadequate manufacturers. And, working with FQ to get manufacturing right the first time ensures that:

• Your customers are happy 
• You don’t waste money 

Finding the right manufacturer for your company isn't a happenstance – we’ve got the knowledge to make the informed, productive choice. 

FQ streamlines the supplier selection process for you

For every product, there are hundreds of potential suppliers. This creates a balancing act for brands –

• The good is that they have the luxury of choice in terms of supplier
• The bad is that it’s very difficult to find the right supplier

We recently supported one of our customer’s sourcing efforts for a supplier for their new product line. We proposed four potential suppliers – but first, we performed supplier audits at each one to validate their manufacturing practices and program qualities.

Our customer selected one of the suppliers and is now running their first product batch.

Your partners in manufacturing and sourcing play a critical role in your business that shouldn't be overlooked.