Five questions that tell you whether a factory can make your product

Every factory visit looks the same: a clean line, a wall of certificates, a meeting room with tea. None of it tells you whether this factory can make your product, at your volume, to your date. Five questions do most of the work.

First: what else runs on this line, and when? A line shared with a larger customer is a line you lose in peak season. Ask for the changeover schedule, not the capacity number.

Second: who owns the tooling, and where does it physically sit? If the answer is vague, you are not sourcing a product, you are renting one. Get it in the contract before the first order, not after the relationship sours.

Third: show me a batch record from a run that failed. A factory that cannot produce one either does not keep them or will not show you. Both are answers. The one that hands you a record with a root cause and a corrective action is the one to shortlist.

Fourth: which of my components do you make, and which do you buy? Sub-suppliers are where lead time and quality quietly leak. You want their list, and you want to know whether they have a second source for the critical ones.

Fifth: what is your price valid until, and what moves it? A price with no validity window and no stated drivers is not a price, it is an opening position. The good factories will tell you exactly which material index they are exposed to.