When working with an injection molding company, many do not offer final assembly services. If you do find a contract manufacturer you are planning on working with that can take care of final assembly tasks, there’s a host of questions you will need to ask them. During the vetting stage, here are five of the most important questions to ask your contract manufacturer about their final assembly services.
What Quality Measurement Standards do They Follow?
ISO 9001:2008 requires that the company be able to consistently meet customer requirements when manufacturing parts. Other ISO certifications have specific emphases. Is the contract manufacturer you plan on working with certified?
What Kind of Experience do They Have?
You want a team with specific qualities. Search for a team that has focused experience in the product that you’re working with, or find a company that has a wide breadth of knowledge. This ensures that your manufacturing partner will know how to adjust quickly to your parts. They will also have the ability to see the production through to completion without any confusion or other roadblocks. Manufacturers with less experience may not be great at managing problems as they arise.
What Capacity can They Handle?
This is very important, especially with larger production runs. You want to be sure that the assembler and finishing team you have selected can handle the scope of work you need. They should have no issues storing, working on and shipping parts. Your manufacturer should also have the space to handle high volume demands without leaving parts outside or unorganized.
How will They Help With Getting to the Final Stage Product?
Some companies have a lot of experience managing a variety of critical tasks to help get your final stage product out the door. Other questions to ask that will help you better understand their abilities include:
- How many people will you have working on my project?
- Are you a 24-hour operation or a 9-to-5?
- What types of final assembly work do you do?
- Do certain services or components need to be sourced? Who is going to handle that?
- Is there any type of anodizing or finish coating that needs to be done with various components of the assembly? Will that be done on-site or sourced out to another location and/or business?
- Do you possess the necessary tools, or are their specialty tools, that will need to be provided or manufactured?
- Who will handle shipping? Do you offer drop shipping services?
How Much are They Going to Save You?
One of the key reasons organizations rely on contract manufacturers to carry out final assembly work is cost savings. To lower costs, you’ll want to ensure that everything can be done in one place. This will add savings when it comes to logistics because you won’t have to ship parts from one location to another.
You can also save by ensuring you have the right partner when problems arise. The team carrying your product through from initial injection mold to paint to finish assembly have become intimately familiar with the parts. They fully understand how the part is supposed to work and the best way to handle it. If something should happen, and issues with parts are detected during assembly, you will want a company that’s familiar with your needs. That way they can solve the issue to get back up and running, which saves you time and money.
To learn more about selecting the right contract manufacturing partner download our free Contract Manufacturing Guidelines Tip Sheet.
