Tips for Maintaining Quality in Manufacturing Facilities in the Philippines

One of the growing hubs for manufacturing is the Philippines. You can often get your high-quality goods produced here at an affordable price point. However, it can be hard to decide on the right manufacturer and make sure they keep quality at a high level when you aren’t present in the country. That’s why choosing a quality control company in the Philippines can be an excellent idea.

Simple Audit

Getting audits involves having a third party visit the factory to determine if things are being done properly. A professional quality control company should have an ISO 9001, which is an internationally accepted form of quality management standards. There are numerous types of audits, but some of the things that may be looked at include whether the manufacturer has the right licenses, properly stores chemicals, and performs their own quality management on-site.

Audit of Social Compliance

There are several auditing processes that might be useful for you when using an overseas manufacturer. The first one is social compliance auditing. Essentially, when an audit of this type is undertaken, a quality control company will look into safety and labor practices in the workplace. This might mean finding that the facility needs to install a first aid kit or that they should be providing insurance benefits to their employees.

Process Auditing

This is typically the quality control process that you associate with the job. This audit involves visiting the factory and watching the process of production, and it lets a third party determine if there are ways to improve the factory processes. This could be something as simple as improving a process that is continually resulting in defects or finding inefficiencies that might be wasting money and time. The standards in the Philippines are different than the United States, so this is a highly recommended type of audit.

Vendor Guide Explained

After you have chosen a quality control company in the Philippines and have ran any audits, you may have chosen a manufacturer you’d like to go with. At that point, the next step is often creating a vendor guide. This guide will provide information about procedures and policies that are required for the manufacturer to implement. This paperwork can be long and includes guidelines for everything from approving samples to shipping, social compliance requirements, and packaging standards.

In addition, you will include your terms and conditions. This is the part of the document that explains your non-disclosure agreement, terms of payment, right of inspection, penalties for defective merchandise or late shipments, and exclusivity.

Having goods manufactured in the Philippines is a great way to cut costs, but being aware of quality and implementing monitoring are excellent ideas. Auditing is a good way to choose a company for your needs, and invoking a vendor guide with conditions will keep you on the right track. Follow these tips, and you will be ready to begin your manufacturing process with half the worry!