I guess i should begin by saying i often recieve packaging shipments from china that are a complete mess. No matter how many times i ask for better bundling and organization it seems to fall on deaf, chinese ears.
That being said we often get 40-50 large box shipments that contain tens of thousands of small cardboard pieces. We also recieve small items like caps, tube caps, gaskets, etc.
It is not uncommon for china to accidently short me on a flavor or forget to include caps in the shipment etc. Theyll fix their mistake and ship the missing items once the problem is noticed. I am at a point where i need a solution. Paying someone to sit and count the incoming shipments sucks to begin with. And they dont always catch the mistakes, which is infuriating when you realize you are missing a piece of your packaging while wrapping up your actual products.
My questions are:
Has anyone found a good way to automate this?
It seems no matter who i put on the job or how i organize the system, things still fall through the cracks. Im looking into parts counters and such.
Would MRP/tracking software help or still too much room for error? Just thinking Partsbox, Partkeepr or Snipe-IT could be low/no cost (aside from labor) options.
The lower wage employees typically kick and scream about using technology and thats problem number one with that. But i like the qr scanning partsbix offers so thanks for that im gonna look into that as hopefully atleast a partial solution.
The other issue is the packaging is constantly changing. New brands/new iterations etc. We co-pack so you can imagine my frustration when a client thinks their product is almost done and sudd3nly i have to push it back a week because were missing qr stickers or caps or something.
If nothing leaves the manufacturer without being inspected first, your life gets a lot easier.
It sounds like there is no reason for them to bother making sure your order is right - you check it after it arrives and they can make up the difference later. You might want to figure out ways to incentivise them to not fuck it up in the first place.
Lord knows i try to convey my frustration but we deal with mutliple factories using one broker as our point of contact. We’ve made him pay for some of the mixups/misprints. His prices are great which is why we continue doing business with him.
Make him pay for ALL of them. Make him pay for/book an inspector to review the shipment before it leaves. If you don’t pay ANYTHING if it arrives wrong, it will stop arriving wrong.
I used to make them send me pictures before I paid the shipping
Maybe you could even leverage your payment
If this is costing you money, Offer your supplier 5% more but you only pay 50% up front and you’ll pay the remaining 50% when the order is verified with pictures
Also if you need 5000 of something order 5100 or 5200
Another strategy I used was I had “Mystery” flavor packaging. So when I eventually got fucked by China I could just put the mixed bag of fuckery into mystery packaging
Tried the picture thing, tried shipping manifests. Never specific enough on their end.
I like the idea of having a 3rd party inspector. Leveraging payment seems like a great idea im sure our money guy has had that conversation though. I will have to ask about that.
For the record though ive used lots of brokers. I am currently rocking with the best one of ive found and have been using him the last few years now.
Small parts counters can be found on AliBaba for relatively cheap. They’re designed to package into a bag but can be modified to just dump them all into a bin.