quality clothing manufacturers
Now there are so many suppliers, traders, factories, industry and trade. With so many suppliers, how can we find a suitable supplier for us? You can follow a few points.
01Audit certification
How do you ensure that your suppliers are as qualified as they show them on PPT?
Certification of suppliers by third parties is an effective way to ensure that the requirements and standards of customers are met by verifying the processes of production operation, continuous improvement and document management.
Certification focuses on cost, quality, delivery, maintenance, safety and the environment. With ISO, industry feature certification or Dun’s code, procurement can quickly screen suppliers.
02Assess the geopolitical climate
As the trade war between China and the US has escalated, some buyers have shifted their eyes to low-cost countries in Southeast Asia, such as Vietnam, Thailand and Cambodia.
Suppliers in these countries can offer lower prices, but weak infrastructure, labor relations and political turmoil may prevent a stable supply.
In January 2010, the Thai political group took control of the Suvarnabhumi International Airport in the capital, suspending all air imports and export operations in Bangkok, only to neighboring countries.
In May 2014, beating, smashing, looting and burning against foreign investors and enterprises in Vietnam. Some Chinese enterprises and personnel, including Taiwan and Hong Kong, as well as enterprises in Singapore and South Korea, were hit to varying degrees, causing losses of lives and property.
Supply risk in the area needs to be assessed before selecting a supplier.
03Check for financial soundness
Procurement needs to pay attention to the financial health of the supplier, and must not wait until the other side has business difficulties.
It’s like before an earthquake, there are some abnormal signs, and some signals before the supplier’s financial situation goes wrong.
Such as frequent executive departures, especially those responsible for their core businesses. The high debt ratio of suppliers may lead to tight capital pressure, and a little mistake will cause the rupture of the capital chain. Other signals may also be declining timely delivery rates and quality, long-term unpaid holidays or even massive layoffs, negative social news from supplier bosses, and so on.
04 Evaluate the weather-related risks
Manufacturing is not a weather-dependent industry, but the weather still affects supply chain disruptions. Typhoons in the southeast coastal areas every summer will affect suppliers in Fujian, Zhejiang and Guangdong provinces.
Various secondary disasters after typhoon landing will cause serious threats and great losses to production, operation, transportation and personal safety.
When selecting a potential supplier, the procurement needs to check the typical weather conditions in the area, assess the risk of supply interruption, and whether the supplier has a contingency plan. When a natural disaster occurs, how to respond quickly, resume production, and maintain the normal business.
05Confirm that there are multiple manufacturing bases
Some large suppliers will have production bases or warehouses in multiple countries and regions, which will give buyers more options. Transportation costs and other associated costs will vary by shipment location. The distance of transportation will also have an impact on the delivery time. The shorter the delivery time, the lower the inventory holding cost of the purchaser, and it can quickly respond to the fluctuations of market demand, and avoid the shortage of goods and sluggish inventory.
Multiple production bases can also ease the capacity shortage. When a short-term capacity bottleneck occurs in a factory, suppliers can arrange production in other factories with insufficient capacity.
If the transportation cost of the product accounts for an high total holding cost, the supplier must consider building a factory near the customer’s location. Suppliers of automobile glass and tires generally set up factories around the oEMS to meet customers’ logistics needs for JIT.
Sometimes a supplier has multiple manufacturing bases.
06Get the inventory data visibility
There are three famous big Vs in the supply chain management strategy, which are respectively:
Visibility, visibility
Velocity, Speed
Variability, Variability
The key to the success of the supply chain is increasing the visualization and speed of the supply chain and adapting to change. By obtaining the storage data of the key materials of the supplier, the purchaser can know the location of the goods at any time to prevent the risk of running out of stock.
07Investigate supply chain agility
When the demand of the purchaser fluctuates, the supplier is required to adjust the supply plan in time. At this time, the agility Agility of the supplier supply chain should be investigated.
According to the definition of SCOR supply chain operation reference model, agility is defined as three different dimensions, which are:
① fast
Upward flexibility Upside flexibility, how many days are needed, can achieve a capacity increase of 20%.
② measure
Upward adaptability of Upside adaptability, in 30 days, the production capacity can reach the maximum amount.
③ fall
Downadaptation Downside adaptability, within 30 days, the order reduction will not be affected, if the order reduction is too much, suppliers will have a lot of complaints, or transfer capacity to other customers.
To understand the supply agility of suppliers, the purchaser can understand the strength of the other party as soon as possible, and have a quantitative assessment of the supply capacity in advance.
08Check the service commitments and customer requirements
Prepare for the worst and prepare for the best. The purchaser needs to check and evaluate the customer service level of each supplier.
Procurement needs to sign a supply agreement with the supplier, to ensure the supply service level, and the use of standardized terms, specification between procurement and raw material suppliers, about the rules of order delivery, such as forecast, order, delivery, documents, loading mode, delivery frequency, delivery waiting time and packaging label standard, and so on.
09Obtain lead-time and delivery statistics
As mentioned above, a short lead delivery period can reduce the purchaser’s inventory holding cost and safety inventory level, and can quickly respond to fluctuations in downstream demand.
The purchaser should try to choose a supplier with a short lead period. Delivery performance is the key to measure the supplier’s performance, and if the supplier fails to proactively provide information about the on-time delivery rate, it means that this indicator has not received the attention it deserves.
On the contrary, the supplier can actively track the delivery situation and timely feedback the problems in the delivery process, which will win the trust of the buyer.
10Confirm payment conditions
Large multinational companies have uniform payment terms, such as 60 days, 90 days after receipt of invoices. Unless the other party supplies raw materials that are difficult to obtain, the purchaser is more willing to choose the supplier that agrees to its own payment terms.
These are the 10 skills I have summarized for you. When making purchasing strategies and selecting suppliers, you can consider these tips and develop a pair of “sharp eyes”.
Finally, I will tell you a small way to choose suppliers, that is, to directly send a message to us, you will immediately get a best clothing supplier, to help your brand to a higher level.
Post time: May-25-2024
