155: Identifying a Sourcing Partner for Overseas Manufacturing

Dec 21 2022 • 17 mins

Forde Aley is the Co-Founder of Shining Way Sourcing, an agency that has sourced manufacturing for over 1,000 products, with both founders having over 25 years of experience in the space. Today Forde is going to share some valuable knowledge on how inventors, startups, and small manufacturers can source their first manufacturer for their new hardware invention idea overseas, how to ensure quality control for that production, and why it is important to consider how that factory can scale as you grow into larger sales over time.

Today you will hear us talk about:

Choosing a factory. How to find the right factory.
3 key things for sourcing: Choosing a factory, quality control, and retail ready-to-scale.
Find out how the factory is managed, who the players are, and how it operates as a management team. This is overlooked but very important to know.
Ensure you or your factory sourcing agent has visited the factory and the factory management team.
Quality control processes must ensure the output product matches all required criteria.
Standard operating procedures manual of a factory.
Retail logistics. Packaging, UPCs, pallets, import, export. Factory selection.
The sourcing company’s in-house team. Both local and offshore.
Experience. Make sure 10 years or more, the more experience, the more factories the team will have worked with and knowledge of.
Why sourcing agents/sourcing companies are important to new consumer product startups and inventors.

EPISODE LINKS:

Forde Aley Links:

LinkedIn | Shining Way Sourcing

The Product Startup Podcast Links:

https://www.ProductStartup.com/

PTC Links:

https://www.ptc.com/

OnShape | Creo

Mako Design Links:

https://www.makodesign.com/

Kevin Mako Links:

Instagram | LinkedIn | Quora | Facebook | Twitter