China Manufacturing Improvement Blog

Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO, spoke at the Fortune Global Forum in Guangzhou a few weeks ago and shared his view on the importance of the NPI (New Product Introduction) process, and how it helps reach his goals. Let's take a close look at his speech from this video here...

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A while back I created this video to explain the new product introduction process. In particular, the 6 key areas that make it up.

Take a look at this video in this post...

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Has your company got a New Product Introduction checklist? Or is it trying to follow the APQP process to the letter, to ensure production goes smoothly once it is launched? Beware missing these two key aspects of manufacturing...

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Importers, have you ever suffered from a delayed product launch?

We've put together a case study on how we performed a very successful product launch turnaround for an electronics company, saving their Christmas orders and subsequent margin of US$9 million!

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This may seem controversial, but I believe that many importers worry too much about being 'nice' with the Chinese factory that supplies them. But is this a good way to conduct this relationship?

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Recently we met with a European company that currently exports medical devices to China and is thinking of manufacturing them “in China, for China”. It makes increasing sense for them.
Is manufacturing medical devices in China something that you are looking to do? Let's explore.

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A few weeks ago, I wrote about the best way to get your manufacturing automation timeline right. And one conclusion was that a factory should develop its maintenance capabilities before jumping into full automation.

The question is, how do preventive and predictive maintenance work, and what is the logic for putting them in place in your factory?

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Glue is used in the production of a wide range of products. Gluing two parts together is an extremely common process. And yet, many of the very serious quality issues coming out of China come from the use of an improper glue.
Let's dig into this with David...

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There are two main causes for production bottlenecks:

1. Poor line balancing – some jobs are running slower than others, and materials pile up in front of the slowest ones.
2. Poor process control and/or poor maintenance – the equipment does not run as it was designed to run. It is often down or busy re-processing materials.

In this post I'll focus on the first cause...

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Have you implemented a process control plan to reduce rework and scrap? In this post I will explain why this tool is really useful, and walk you through how it works in a short video...

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