Services

From market intelligence to ongoing quality assurance.

Six fields of service forming one closed chain: not address-brokering, but identification, evaluation and qualification of manufacturing capability — documented and verifiable.

Six fields

Six fields of service. One chain of competence.

S-01Supplier identificationWhich factory in China can actually produce your part — at the required level, volume and timing? Systematic search through cluster knowledge, trade fairs and market networks — the result is a reasoned shortlist of 3–6 candidates, not an address list.
S-02Factory audits & qualificationIs the factory that quotes the factory that delivers — and in what real condition? On-site assessment: machine park, measurement room and gauges, process data and traceability, documentation (material certificates, melt protocols, test reports), quality culture and customer structure — since 2026 including emissions data under CBAM.
S-03Technical evaluationDoes the factory's capability fit your drawing — tolerances, material, volume, inspection scope? An honest feasibility assessment including risk points — even when the honest answer is: not this factory.
S-04Sourcing executionRFQ, structured quotation comparison, negotiation, order and commercial coordination — across language, time zone and culture. Including change management with documented revision states.
S-05Quality assuranceFirst-article inspection with defined characteristics, ongoing inspection by agreement, documented deviation management with 8D logic. Quality data — PPM, protocols — belong in supplier management, not in a drawer.
S-06Manufacturing intelligenceCost-structure analysis (machine-hour rates, material utilisation, overheads), steel and commodity data series, CBAM readiness checks, China+1 comparisons, supplier landscape maps — as consulting or subscription.

The economic core

The cost of a failed supplier relationship — claims, rework, delivery failures, in the worst case downtime at your own customer — typically exceeds the cost of thorough qualification by a multiple. Qualification is the cheapest insurance policy in sourcing.

Engagement models

Three ways to work with us.

Model A

Project mandate

One part, one drawing, one mandate: identification to series maturity as a closed project with defined milestones and a documented closing report.

  • Ideal for: a concrete part family with procurement demand
  • Fixed scope, fixed milestones, documentation
  • Handover after series maturity possible

Model B

Ongoing stewardship

Your base in China: ongoing quality assurance, supplier management and procurement coordination for existing and new sources.

  • Ideal for: multiple part families or recurring demand
  • Regular factory contact and quality data
  • Monthly report, defined response times

Model C

Intelligence subscription

Data instead of delegation: ongoing cost, market and supplier intelligence for your own procurement organisation, including access to our raw data series.

  • Ideal for: procurement teams with their own China experience
  • Quarterly data packages and analyst calls
  • Prioritised access to factory-audit capacity

First questions

What buyers ask us first.

Your question is not listed?

No. Our services are billed as consulting and project fees, not as a percentage of order value. That keeps incentives clean: we recommend the best factory, not the biggest project.
It depends on the part family, not on a universal number. Rule of thumb from our projects: for recurring series from roughly 5,000 units/year of automatable CNC parts, qualification pays off early; for castings and forgings, annual tonnage and machining complexity matter more. Small batches and high-mix often remain better served locally — we say so.
Identification and shortlist: 2–4 weeks. Audit and technical evaluation: another 2–3 weeks. RFQ, comparison and negotiation: 2–4 weeks. First articles including inspection: 4–8 weeks depending on the part. Series ramp-up: another 4–6. Realistically 4–6 months to a stable series — anyone promising eight weeks is probably skipping qualification.
We manage the deviation with documentation: root-cause analysis at the factory, 8D report, defined countermeasures, re-inspection. If a factory fails structurally, we activate the backup candidate from the shortlist. We document these cases too (anonymised) — see our cases section.
China is our focus — that is where our physical presence and the deepest manufacturing base are. Where China+1 makes sense (simpler, automatable series), we additionally qualify suppliers in Vietnam and India. See our China+1 analysis for an honest assessment of what the alternatives deliver.