Want Good China Product? Use A Good China Spec Sheet

(Before It's News)

There are all sorts of things you should be doing to increase your odds of securing good product from your Chinese manufacturer. When I speak on what it takes to successfully source product from China, I always emphasize the following four things:

1. Good manufacturer (due diligence)
2. Good OEM Agreement
3. Good IP protection
4. Good quality control

Years ago we did a China OEM Agreement for a really sophisticated client with a really sophisticated in-house lawyer. During one of our conversations this lawyer emphasized the importance of the specifications sheet for his company and talked about how it had instructions on drafting its spec sheets for securing product from China. I asked if he would send me those instructions for this blog. He did and I am just now finally getting around to running it, below.

We typically draft our China OEM Agreements to incorporate our clients’ spec sheets (a/k/a data sheets) as an Exhibit and when that is not possible or if the spec sheet were to change, they are to include the spec sheet as part of their PO, which in turn is specified as being incorporated into the OEM Agreement. So when I lecture on the importance of having a good OEM Agreement, that includes having a good spec sheet.

Note that the below spec sheet instructions are for one particular company and your requirements likely will vary enough from this company’s so as to make these instructions not perfect for you. But it should be a good start.

According to the instructions, all spec sheets should contain the following:

1. Product description
2. The SKU
3. The specific materials for the product and the precise amount
4. Product dimensions
5. Product tolerances (if any)
6. The Pantones (product colors)
7. Testing requirements
8. Price
9. Order quantity
10. Label specifications
11. Packaging specifications
12. Shipping specifications
13. Special instructions
14. Photographs of the product from multiple angles and with the dimensions indicated

The instructions also mandate listing “every appropriate detail not set forth above” and the requirement that everything be set out in “as much detail as possible” and “confirming with the manufacturer that you have not overlooked anything”and “that it [the Chinese manufacturer] has everything it needs to know exactly what to manufacture.”

Seems like good instructions to me. What do you think?

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