Continuing on with raw materials in our manufacturing introduction to starting your own business, it is important that you find good supply chains. A good supply chain not only will have the materials you need, they can provide it regularly and with a degree of consistancy that you need to maintain a high standard for quality control.
Using shoes as our example, let us say that you got laces made from vinyl and the vinyl was a poor quality or if it were plastic it would start to wear down in weeks. Do you think that people would want to continue to buy your shoes? Of course not! You need to make sure that the initial materials, the raw materials or goods, going into the process are of sufficiently high tolerances that they will make it through and then last in the shoe.
How the soles of the shoes? Any person (including you) ever have shoes fall apart within months of buying them? The glue wears off of the shoe sometimes, the material is of hopelessly poor quality and it disintegrates, you get the idea. For ladies, how about high heels that break? As of this entry, there are new high heels on the market with a foot high heel (though the shoe looks like it has more support). Can you imagine if the hit of the fashion world broke down in a week? The designer and his line of shoes would be out of business in a no time at all.
In getting your supply line set, look for back ups in case the source materials dry up, laws in the countries change or the seller decides to jack up the price to the point that you can’t afford to pass it on to your customer anymore or absorb the cost yourself.
Keep your thinking caps on with this and remember to learn as much as you can with the process of getting the materials. For example if you needed to use potash, you would need to learn how it is found, made, the materials for storing it, how it is shipped and the info that goes with it to make proper informed decisions as to the raw material costs.
Here is hoping that you come up with some great manufacturing ideas and get them implemented. We are counting on each other to work our way as a nation out of the Depression!
Be safe and healthy, gang.
Oct 11 2009
Kim Isaac Greenblatt
Raw Materials
Tags: Business, manufacturing