Manufacture With a Golden Sample

Date：2014-12-18  Click：1010

Let’s say you’re manufacturing a widget. You believe you have a great widget or at least a lucrative plan for selling it. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t be going through the trouble of producing it. So you send your design and your specs to the factory of your choosing and ask them to manufacture 10,000 widgets right away. No problem, right?
 
Actually, there is one glaring problem with this. You didn’t bother to ask the factory to send you a sample for review. This article will tell you why you should never manufacture without a “golden sample”.
 

The Importance of Golden Samples

Why are golden samples important? Golden samples represent what the factory is capable of making and what they believe perfectly conforms to your specifications. If the factory doesn’t send you a golden sample before starting mass production how will you be able to verify that the factory fully understands what you want? You can send artwork, CAD drawings, barcodes, carton markings and other important product information to the factory well in advance. But if you’re not given the opportunity to review a sample of what the factory has produced before beginning your order you could be in for a huge disappointment. This brings us to our next point.
 

Who Should Have a Golden Sample?

Always insist that your supplier send a sample to you for approval before starting your order for a new product. This is especially critical if you’re working with a particular supplier for the first time!
You may consider yourself an expert who’s worked with a specific type of product for a long time. But for a product you’re less familiar with, you may want to enlist the help of a third  party to review a golden sample. The same would apply for especially complicated products or those that need specialized equipment for checking quality and functionality. Examples include vibration testing for an electric router motor or connectors endurance testing for mobile phones. These kinds of testing need to be conducted in a professional lab. Even if you are able to examine and professionally review a golden sample yourself, it may be costly to have one shipped to you. Many third-party inspection firms (TPIs) are able to review samples on your behalf, which could save you time and money.
 
Golden samples serve another purpose aside from verifying specifications are met before production. It’s just as important that whoever is inspecting your product at the factory has the sample on-hand. If you’re personally visiting your factory to inspect your order be sure to bring along a golden sample for comparison. Likewise, if you’re hiring a third-party inspection firm to go to the factory and check your products make sure their staff have a golden sample. Nothing is more helpful during inspection than being able to compare a sample taken from production with a sample the buyer has already approved. Any deviation found between samples can be photographed and reported back to the buye
 

The Limitations of Golden Samples

Golden samples are important, but they can be misleading. Many buyers receive a golden sample, and they love what they see. Then they’re disappointed when their order arrives substandard and bearing little resemblance to the sample. Although the sample you receive from the factory meets your expectations for design and quality, mass production might not. When your factory sends you a sample to review it’s reasonable to consider it a representation of the best the factory can do. And if you notice more than a few problems with the sample you should reconsider working with that particular supplier. There’s a reason they’re called “golden samples” – they’re supposed to be nearly perfect.