Back in the nineties there was a series of books "Don't sweat the small stuff" you remember the psychological self help type. In your personal life this is likely a good mantra to follow.
Move to a business scenario then it is an entirely different story although many owners and management seem to take the mantra as their business model. "We only concern ourselves with the design and test aspects leave the rest to someone else" is a common business philosophy that I encounter in my consults. This is all fine if you are designing to order and delivering and installing on-site for the customer. The customer does not see the finer details in this case and only gets to see the working product at the end.
Most of us do not operate within this sheltered scenario. We sell products to our customers and the customer EXPECTS to receive it in a predictable and consistent manner from order to order, batch to batch. When we do not deliver consistency to our customers then the customer gets the inevitable impression that our business is in chaos and so the product is by default unreliable.
Little things like getting the boxes of consistent size and material, labels in a repeatable format, inclusions placed in EXACTLY the same configuration within the box start to present themselves as major concerns to a customer that has decided that they have a reason to be concerned about your product.
I had a client moving to final production recently. They were surprised at the end when everything was running smoothly how much effort and time needed to be devoted purely to packaging and logistics labeling. Take this part of your product seriously, it is the FIRST thing your customers will see when they receive your shipment or buy your product and sometimes it will dictate the decision to buy or not to buy. Remember often the customer cannot see what is inside and they are judging primarily by what they can see in front of their eyes. If the box is poorly assembled and labels are not aligned and consistent, it reflects poorly on your entire product and may prompt your customers to think about the next product on the shelf
Isn't it time you re-evaluated your International Supply Chain setup? If there is one thing 2020 taught the world, it is how fragile supply can become when the majority of the world's manufacturing is conducted in the same country. If we are being honest with ourselves, China has not offered a significant financial or capability benefit for several years now. Ever increasing wages and operating costs compounded with the desire for those traditionally employed as factory staff to better their life and livelihood has pushed manufacturing costs up and the inherent IP risk has never really been resolved. Now with trade wars and retaliatory "anti-dumping" fees / embargos for Australian products imported to China coupled with growing consumer resentment around the "Made in China" tag, it is becoming more and more the time to re-evaluate. There are a multitude of options outside of China as well as the possibility of return to local manufacture for some products but it is best to have a definite plan on your future strategy and actions required to get there. EQP can help you to plan and execute your future sourcing and manufacture strategy by working with you and potential manufacturing partners either locally or offshore to ensure that any move away from China does not result in a drop in capacity or quality whilst potentially saving you money. There is no better time to plan for the future than today. Get in touch to explore your options and resolve some of your Supply Chain headaches.
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