How a China product development project runs from brief to first production run, organised around the payments that cannot be recovered once they are made.
Stage one: a brief the factory can quote against
Development starts badly when the first document a factory sees is a photograph of a competitor's product. What a quoting factory needs is the function, the target market, the critical dimensions and tolerances, the materials you will and will not accept, the finish, the packaging format and the annual volume you are planning for. Where you do not know a number yet, say so and mark it open rather than leaving it blank — an open item that everyone can see is manageable, and a silently assumed one becomes an argument at the sample stage.
- Function, critical dimensions, tolerances, materials, finish and packaging
- Realistic annual volume, because it drives tooling and MOQ decisions
- Open items listed as open, with a date by which each will be settled
Stage two: samples before anyone cuts steel
Hand samples, printed prototypes and existing catalogue parts modified by hand are all cheap ways to learn something before the expensive commitment. They will tell you about size, proportion, weight and basic function. They will not tell you how the production process behaves — a printed prototype does not shrink like a moulded part, and a hand-finished surface is not the surface a tool produces. Treat this stage as answering questions about the design, and the tooling trial as answering questions about manufacturing.
- Pre-tooling samples answer design questions, not process questions
- Confirm which properties the sample method cannot represent
- Settle appearance and dimensions here, while changes are still cheap
Stage three: tooling, the payment with no route back
Tooling is the point at which the money stops being recoverable, so the checks belong in front of it. Confirm that the registered entity that will hold the tool is the entity on your contract, and settle the commercial points an agreement should cover before a lawyer drafts it. After the tool is cut, an on-site check can establish what physically exists: whether a tool matching the part is present at the stated address, its identification marking, its cavity count against the output you were quoted, and its visible condition. Expect trial rounds — T1 rarely produces a sellable part — and confirm in writing how many modification rounds the quotation includes.
- Verify the tool-holding entity before the payment, not after
- On-site check after cutting: marking, cavity count and condition
- Agree the number of included trial and modification rounds up front
Stage four: freeze the specification and seal the sample
Before the first production run there should be one physical reference that both sides agree describes a correct unit, and a written specification that says what about it matters. We hold the sealed reference sample and the written specification, and every later order is checked against them rather than against a general idea of correct. This is also the moment to agree what counts as a change requiring re-approval: a different material grade, a repaired or replaced mould insert, a new colour lot, a different production site or a subcontracted process.
- One sealed, dated, signed reference unit — not a folder of photographs
- Written specification naming the properties that decide accept or reject
- Agreed list of changes that require the buyer to re-approve
What actually determines the timeline
The schedule is rarely decided by how fast a factory can work. It is decided by trial rounds you did not budget for, material lead times on anything non-standard, testing that has to be booked with a laboratory, and the national holidays that stop production for weeks at a time. Build the plan backwards from the date you need stock on hand, and put the irreversible payments at the points where you would still accept the risk if the previous stage had gone badly. If you intend to register a design, take advice on filing before the product is shown publicly, since protection in most countries requires the design to be new.
- Budget for extra trial rounds rather than assuming the first is final
- Check the factory holiday calendar before promising a launch date
- Take IP filing advice before a public launch or trade-fair showing
Authoritative references
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