Jul. 08, 2024
This post originally appeared in the Centra Foods Blog.
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If you're on the search for a new supplier, there's some basic questions that you'll need to ask. These inquiries will be your basic introduction, but will actually build your foundation for years of a good working relationship.
The answers to these questions will be a vital part of choosing who you want to work with, how you're going to partner together and if they're going to be able to take care of you in times of need.
In fact, these questions are so important that if you're already buying from a particular supplier and you forgot to to ask a few of these questions, you'll probably want to go back and ask anyways.
This will help you be fully prepared to partner together-- the more you know now, the better.
Here's everything you should be asking your suppliers (whether you've worked with them for years or not).
Most suppliers have a minimum order. Depending on the industry that your supplier serves, it could be one case, one pallet or one truckload. As a buyer, you'll need to know what their minimums are to understand if:
a) you're working with the right type of supplier for your type of business, and
b) to make sure you order enough in the future.
These minimum orders are put in place because of efficiency reasons for your manufacturers' own warehouse. For example, if it takes them one hour to set up their production line, they're not going to want to fill just one case in that time before they shut it down again.
These minimums help them keep their prices as competitive as possible for you.
Many suppliers offer a price break for ordering more volume. The more you buy, the more you save. Why? It's not just about rewarding those who buy more. In fact, larger orders allow their warehouse to work in more efficiencies which saves them money. When they save money, you save money!
They key for you is going to be finding out where these price breaks are and seeing if you can take advantage of them by re-arranging or consolidating your orders.
The total costs are the most important price you're doing to get. That's what actually matters to your business-- it's the amount of money that will come out of your pocket. A product can be really competitively priced, but if you have to add in an astronomically high shipping rate, your costs are not all that cheap anymore.
Ask for an FOB cost at their dock, and then get an estimate for the shipping. Once you put those two numbers together, you should be good to go!
Once in a while, some suppliers will have extra fees for things like pallets, packaging, labels, or handling fees. Make sure you ask for the total cost of a potential order and get all of these "extras" out in the open before you place your order.
Many industrial or business suppliers offer credit terms, if you quality. These terms may be 15, 30 or 60 days depending on the standard in your industry. This means that, for up to a particular dollar amount, you will be billed for what you ordered and you'll get to pay later. For example, if you have terms of "$50,000, Net 15", this means that you have 15 days to pay for your order after it ships. However, your order will have to be under $50,000, or if it isn't, you'll have to prepay some of that cost.
Other suppliers may require cash on delivery (COD), or pre-payment with a check, wire transfer or credit card before you order. Just have that conversation from the get go, so you know what you can expect and when you'll have to pay.
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Prices Change?Some products have prices that stay the same for years. Other items, like bulk olive oil for example, have prices that are always changing because the products are commodities. In this case, you can expect that your rates will change over time-- but exactly how often though? That depends on the product, how much you buy, and the market.
Talk to your supplier about what kinds of market changes will make your price go up or down. Ask them as many questions as possible to learn about the commodity market for your product, so you know what kinds of fluctuations you can expect.
Some suppliers have you take ownership when the product leaves their docks. Other times, you don't take ownership of a bulk ingredient until it delivers at your door.
The easiest way to tell is to ask your supplier what the FOB point is. The FOB point is the point where the ownership of the product transfers. If it's FOB your supplier, you take ownership of the product when it leaves their doors. If it's FOB your docks, it's their responsibility until it safely arrives to you. The standard in the bulk oil industry is FOB your supplier.
Any industrial supplier should be able to provide you with a liability insurance certificate. This insurance is something that can protect your business in the event that there is a product recall or other issue. It's important that you get proof of insurance from any supplier, in every industry you buy from.
Make sure that the limits are adequate to meet your needs ($1,000,000 in liability is the general standard for suppliers who work with food manufacturers). Also, ask for an updated copy each year.
Many times, you may be so focused on the product that you're desperate to source that you may not think about other products this supplier would be able to help you out with until later. Perhaps they offer different items that your R&D team has been working on, or they could stand in as an alternative supplier for a different category in times of need.
It's a good practice to always ask for their full product line when you begin conversations, so that you can keep it on hand. Do a quick review to see if there's any other products that you should ask for quotes on in the future.
Make sure you ask your current and potential suppliers as many questions as possible. It will keep both parties happy, and will avoid any confusion in the future.
Asking the right questions will also help keep your business prepared and protected. You don't want to get into a pickle later because you didn't ask enough questions now!
If you're new to the purchasing process in the manufacturing realm, I'd recommend reading 11 Steps To Purchasing Bulk Oil Ingredients For Manufacturing.
And don't forget, here's the list of questions you should be asking. You can copy and paste this list into your notes, to make sure that you don't miss a thing.
Like reading information for purchasers and owners in the food manufacturing industry? Subscribe to the bulk oil blog to stay up to date.
Most people would agree, the concept of quality is subject to a lot of interpretation. It can mean different things to different people and in different contexts.
However, as a product manufacturer, your goal is to achieve quality that is exact &#; a state that can be defined, verified, and reproduced again and again.
According to ISO : section 3.6.2, quality is &#;the degree to which a set of inherent characteristics of an object fulfils requirements.&#;
In the manufacture of metal parts, which in turn are used to make countless other products, the purpose of quality control (QC) is to not only prevent defects, but also ensure that the parts are made to design specifications and will function properly.
A good QC program also helps to keep manufacturing on time and on budget. It also helps to avoid product safety and reliability issues that can add to costs, result in product recalls, or cause problems that pose risks to users or consumers.
Since the quality of your end product and the success of your application depends on having quality components, your parts provider needs to have a thorough understanding of your requirements.
In this guide, we&#;ll provide quality control tips that will help you and your provider produce the quality components you need for your manufacturing project, including:
The first step is to provide detailed design specifications that spell out the important characteristics and requirements of the components you need.
Provide your manufacturing partner with an engineering drawing that shows the requirements of the completed part.
The drawing should include all the characteristics of the part, such as straightness, flatness, circularity, concentricity, cylindricity, perpendicularity, parallelism, profile, and runout. Here at Metal Cutting, our customers are most concerned with the characteristic of length, outside diameter (OD), and, for tubing, inside diameter (ID).
This is where you have the opportunity to describe the part in precise detail, including the dimensions and tolerances for each characteristic. The specified ± tolerances will tell your provider how much variation is acceptable while still producing parts that will function as intended and meet your requirements.
For example, a part drawing might call out a perpendicularity tolerance for a feature such as a hole or pin, where that feature needs to be perpendicular to a theoretical axis. More typically for Metal Cutting customers, measuring of perpendicularity is specified in reference to the squareness of the end cut on small parts such as metal rods or tubes.
You also need to anticipate and account for downstream requirements. For instance, perhaps a product consists of a tube within a tube, both of which then must fit into another part when the final product is assembled. This would require precise OD and ID concentricity on the tubing components.
It is also important to be clear what system of measurement &#; standard or metric &#; you use and to how many decimal points any measurements should be rounded. This is especially true when converting between inches and millimeters for part tolerances, where you may need to also adjust for the upper and lower limits of the acceptable tolerance range.
Additionally, the accuracy of the tools that are used can be affected by conversion and rounding. So, for instance, if a part has a tolerance to three decimal places, at Metal Cutting we would make sure our measuring device goes out an additional decimal place, to maintain the upper and lower tolerance limits the customer has specified.
Your parts provider also needs to know which part characteristics are most critical to meeting your manufacturing quality needs.
While the goal, ideally, is to make all the characteristics of a part meet requirements, sometimes that is simply not possible. Therefore, you need to establish priorities and tell your provider which requirements are most important to:
Multiple Tolerances
Keep in mind that, since tighter tolerances are more difficult &#; and therefore, costly &#; to achieve, it is important to not over-engineer the part and ask for the tightest possible tolerance on all features.
Again, the key is to ask for allowable tolerances that are tight enough to make the part function as it needs to, but not so tight that producing the part becomes too expensive.
When you have one part with multiple attributes that require tolerances &#; such as a part with both a diameter and a radius &#; you need to decide which dimension is more critical.
The more critical dimension is generally the one that determines how well a part will function in the end application and, therefore, merits the tightest tolerance. In turn, the tightest tolerance usually determines what type of machine and tools will be used, which determine the cost of the part.
Conflicting Requirements
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Sometimes, a part is designed with specifications that are at odds with each other. What do you do when there are conflicting requirements?
For example, at Metal Cutting Corporation, our customer might specify a part that has both deburring and radius requirements. However, the process of tumbling the part to deburr it would increase the radius size; therefore, if a smaller radius is critical to functionality, the customer might have to skip deburring.
Or, a customer&#;s part specifications might ask for a very large radius, but a large radius might eat into the diameter of the part. Again, the customer would need to establish which requirement is more important &#; the radius or the diameter?
In other cases, compromise might involve adjusting one tolerance up or down to allow the most critical dimension to be achieved. For example, a customer might need to loosen a radius tolerance to hold a tight diameter that is necessary to the part&#;s function.
What raw materials will have the characteristics necessary to meet the requirements of your parts? In other words, what do you have to start with to get the end result you need?
For instance, perhaps a certain straightness might be needed so that the material will feed through a machine correctly. Or, a specific chemistry might be required so that the part will be nonreactive when it is assembled with other components.
It is important to research qualified suppliers for your raw materials and create an approved supplier list, either for your own reference or to provide to your parts manufacturer. In addition to listing the raw material sources, your purchase order should spell out exactly what you need, including the size, grade, and quantity of material.
Once a raw material is delivered, you or your provider should do an inspection to make sure the order is correct and the material has the right characteristics to meet your requirements.
Once you have established the requirements of your project &#; including the design specifications, your priorities, and the materials to be used &#; the next step is for your parts provider to document how they plan to achieve the best results at the best cost.
Your provider should document the components of their quality control system in writing, including the processes to be used, general procedures, and any other factors that can have an impact on quality. For instance, the documentation might provide details such as:
In short, the written documentation should provide information that supports your manufacturing partner&#;s ability to meet your specifications and achieve your quality requirements. For example, a partner might detail how to minimize metal expansion from heat, humidity, air pressure, or other conditions in the production environment.
The documentation should specify the methods that will be utilized to make the specific part, including the inspection process and tools that you and your partner have agreed to use.
For instance, the presence or absence of material surface defects depends a great deal on how closely a material is inspected. Therefore, the tool and magnification level that will be used to determine whether a part surface is defect-free should be specified.
In addition to spelling out when and how inspections will be performed, the documentation should include how to:
In metal parts manufacturing, as well as many other industries, ISO guidelines are used in establishing, documenting, and supporting quality control methods. In addition, there are ISO standards for areas such as auditing, risk management, environmental management, social responsibility, and food safety.
Many industries must also conform to strict regulations, such as FDA and Current Good Manufacturing Practice (CGMP) requirements for companies in medical device manufacturing, biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, and many other businesses. Additionally, many companies employ process improvement tactics such as Six Sigma, Kaizen, and lean manufacturing.
Here at Metal Cutting Corporation, we maintain our up-to-date ISO certification, and our quality management system (QMS) adheres to the latest ISO standard. That means the written method we create for our customers aligns with ISO recommendations as well as each customer&#;s specifications and unique quality requirements.
The ability to measure parts and provide assurance that they have been produced according to their specifications is another crucial aspect of manufacturing quality control. That&#;s why it is vital to make sure you and your manufacturing partner use the same type of devices and that the devices are cross-calibrated correctly.
The devices that will be used to measure the dimensions of finished parts must be calibrated according to accepted standards, such as NIST, and validated that they will provide the accuracy you need.
Additionally, you need to consider what the calibration tolerance is for the measuring device &#; looking at not only the tolerance the device is capable of, but also the tolerance to which you need to measure.
For instance, a laser micrometer may have a total measurement range of 0.005&#; to 1.000&#;, but the parts that will be measured are 0.025&#; to 0.050&#;. When calibrating, it is best to use a library that is calibrated to the range being utilized, such as using pin gages that are 0.020&#; to 0.055&#; in diameter to calibrate.
Calibration is also involved when pass-fail inspection methods are used, as when parts are so small that taking actual measurements of their dimensions would be impractical, if not impossible. Here at Metal Cutting, we often employ NIST-traceable pin gages (or plug gages) for pass-fail inspection of very small diameter tubing and other parts we produce.
The different classes of small pin gages (XXX, XX, X, Z, and so on) have their own tolerances based amount of variation allowed in the manufacturing of each pin. For example, a Class XXX pin gage has a tolerance of 0.&#; (0. mm), providing a straightness and uniform length that make it a good choice for inspecting parts with a small ID and very tight tolerance.
As part of our QC program at Metal Cutting, pin gages are regularly sent out to a certified lab for calibration. In addition, tools we use ourselves to calibrate other devices in-house are also periodically sent out for recalibration to NIST standards, to maintain consistency, accuracy, and reliability.
A gage repeatability and reproducibility (R&R) study can be done to analyze how much variation there is due to (1) the device itself and (2) the people (such as machine operators or part inspectors) doing the measuring. If there is too much variation, knowing where it is coming from allows the manufacturer to take steps to reduce the variation.
A typical gage R&R study might involve having 10 parts measured three times in random order by three different operators/inspectors using the same gage. An analysis of the measurement data is then performed to identify the source of any variations, such as differences from one part to the next or from one operator/inspector to another.
Note that R&R studies are not limited to gages and can be done to evaluate other types of measuring devices, test methods, and inspection systems. The study might be employed before a new tool is used, as part of training a new technician, or for periodic tool inspection.
Naturally, no QC program would be complete without inspections throughout the manufacturing process.
For example, in the world of small metal parts manufacturing, metal inspection is often done in receiving, at various stages in the production process, and prior to packaging and delivery. It might include visual inspections by eye or using optical tools; pass-fail (go/no-go) testing; or mechanical processes such as eddy current testing (ECT), which is used to detect surface defects.
Again, the schedule for inspections, along with the inspection method and tools to be used, should be agreed upon ahead of time and put in writing.
For instance, perhaps your finished metal parts have very stringent requirements for surface roughness. If so, you and your partner might agree to follow the guidelines in a specified surface finish chart to determine whether the parts meet your requirements.
Or perhaps you require a tiny wire that must be perfectly straight for use in a medical device, but the part&#;s diameter is so small that measuring it with a pin gage, micrometer, or other device would be very difficult, time consuming, and costly. In this instance, Metal Cutting might recommend measuring straightness using a test based on the ASTM F specification for medical devices.
Below are some additional recommendations for an effective inspection process in a typical parts manufacturing operation.
In addition to inspecting all incoming materials before product begins, your parts provider should establish inspection points along the manufacturing process, to maintain acceptable part quality and spot any variations before they have an impact on quality.
This includes inspections at initial setup and whenever tools or wheels are changed, as well as at designated checkpoints during production.
A certain amount of tool and wheel wear is normal and expected in metal parts manufacturing. In-process inspection of parts helps to minimize the impact by allowing the manufacturer to monitor for wear and change out the equipment before parts go out of spec.
For example, if you are machining a part to achieve a certain feature, that feature will change as the tool wears. Regular inspections allow a manufacturer to:
The movement away from nominal is steady and somewhat predictable, allowing in-process checkpoints to be set. In addition, the parts manufacturer can establish a tool change tolerance so that the tool will be monitored and changed before it goes out of the upper or lower tolerance limit.
If a part inspected at the checkpoint is within specifications, the assumption is that all parts made since the last check must also be good. If the part fails for a particular characteristic, all parts produced since the last check would require a 100% inspection for that feature.
If the 100% inspection finds that other parts have also gone out of spec, the machine is adjusted as needed to correct the problem and the cycle continues.
In addition, any nonconforming material or parts need to be segregated from the rest of manufacturing process. Per ISO :, here at Metal Cutting we have a system in place to:
It is important to remember that random things can occur during manufacturing that might cause a nonconforming part to slip past a sample inspection checkpoint.
For instance, a tiny bit of metal shavings or dirt might momentarily get between the tool and the material, resulting in one part within the lot that is not good. Unless that single nonconforming part happens to be inspected at the checkpoint, the lot would still pass the in-process sample inspection.
A sampling plan is an important part of quality control, allowing a manufacturer to inspect a portion of a product lot to determine if the entire lot meets the customer&#;s quality requirements.
Especially for small metal parts and other high-volume production, a sampling plan is far faster and less expensive than inspecting every part. Yet, a sampling plan still provides a statistically valid and reliable indicator of whether a lot is defect-free.
When the time comes to determine whether the finished product meets your specifications, at Metal Cutting we generally recommend a final inspection using an Acceptable Quality Level (AQL) sampling plan.
We establish a customer&#;s sampling plan at the beginning of a project, along with the written method and other requirements. The plan typically includes:
We generally use AQL 1.0 c=0, a zero acceptance sampling plan, in which 100% inspection must be performed for a feature if one randomly selected part in a lot fails inspection.
That means at final inspection, a random sampling of all the produced parts is taken, based on the lot size and the quantity of parts that would statistically indicate that all parts are acceptable quality. For instance, we might inspect a random sampling of 50 parts in each lot size of 5,000 small metal parts.
Using the zero acceptance sampling plan, if one part in the randomly selected sample fails inspection, then the entire lot is subject to 100% inspection for the affected characteristic. If all the parts in the random sampling pass inspection, the entire lot is deemed acceptable.
According to well-established probability theory and its implementation in the sampling plans used by our industry, there is a high probability that all the parts in an acceptable lot are good. While there remains a slight probability that a very small percentage of parts may not be good, our experience has shown us, time and again, that a zero acceptance sampling plan is a statistically reliable, efficient, and cost-effective way of assuring quality results.
Quality control doesn&#;t end when the parts come off the production line and pass inspection. The final step of the quality program is packing the finished components so that they are properly protected when shipped and arrive safely at their destination.
By aligning the unique requirements, variables, and challenges of your project with a QC program, you and your manufacturing partner can ensure you get quality parts for your application.
From there, the parts can play their role in creating a high-quality product &#; one that delivers the form and functionality your end customers want and expect from your brand. Thus, manufacturing quality control plays its part in the success of your application.
That means working with a partner that is committed to manufacturing quality control is vital to the ultimate success of your business.
To learn more about how ensuring quality for your small metal parts, check out our guide on how to fine-tune your quote request.
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