East West Manufacturing Blog

Overseas manufacturing is challenging enough, and now more than ever we are seeing disruptions at nearly every stage of the process from availability of raw materials to logistical nightmares and port congestion. Not to mention the typical challenges related to distance, time zones, language barrier, cultural differences. And if forecasting...

Chinese New Year 2021 is on February 12th. Time to start planning!

Wait a minute, you say. It's only September, you say. 

We know, we know. But this is a big deal, and if you're going to escape Chinese New Year (CNY) unscathed, you need to start preparing now. We can feel you comparing us to those folks who hang their Christmas decorations...

It is the pandemic that has shocked the world. Though health experts had been talking about a global pandemic for years, lack of adequate planning and global reliance on China’s manufacturing prowess allowed COVID-19 to unveil major vulnerabilities in today’s supply chain trends.

While we have our own theories on what the post-coronavirus world...

If you were going to make a cake, you would certainly want to start with a recipe.  The recipe provides instruction on what ingredients to use, and in what quantities.  In addition, a good recipe will provide instruction on how to prepare the ingredients – the order to mix them in, special instructions such as freezing or thawing ahead of time,...

If death and taxes are two guarantees in life, time and money are the two constants when taking an idea from the prototype stage through new product introduction (NPI) into commercial launch.

But have you ever wondered what it looks like to take a product from prototype to production? It's a complex process that combines creativity and...

Designing a new product is as easy as having a great idea, right? Not right. There is a lot that goes into designing, developing, manufacturing, marketing and selling a new product. Millions of products have failed, and chances are that all of them had at least one of the below mistakes in common. Save your product – and business – from an...

At some point the leadership team of a company that manufactures a product, sits around their conference room and asks themselves the million-dollar question, “Should we consider moving production offshore?”

Design for Manufacturing (DFM) is the process of designing parts, components or products for ease of manufacturing with an end goal of making a better product at a lower cost. This is done by simplifying, optimizing and refining the product design. The acronym DFMA (Design for Manufacturing and Assembly) is sometimes used interchangeably with...

Let me guess – you’ve designed an amazing product that you want to manufacture in China, but you’re worried that a cheaper version of your product will appear on Alibaba in a month. Who wants to spend the R+D dollars to then have their intellectual property (IP) stolen in a flash? Taking your IP to China will prove much smoother (and less...

It's a common mistake among procurement newbies to use the acronyms RFQ and RFP interchangeably. Throw in RFI, and things really start to get hairy. Understanding the nuances that distinguish these different types of requests (for information, proposal and quote) will help you get what you need a little faster and more easily, and that's...