10 Questions to Ask Before Sending a Drawing to a Chinese Supplier
10 Questions to Ask Before Sending a Drawing to a Chinese Supplier
Drawings are the most valuable documents an engineering team owns. Before one leaves your inbox, ten minutes of questions will tell you more about a supplier than any website or certificate. Ask all ten; the answers cost nothing and the wrong supplier costs plenty.
1. Do You Manufacture In-House or Coordinate Production?
Ask directly, and listen to how the answer is built. Many good suppliers — and sourcing partners — work with a network of shops; that is not the problem. The problem is pretending otherwise. A straight answer with a clear explanation of how partner production is planned, controlled, and inspected is a better sign than a vague “yes, all our own machines”.
2. Who Reviews My Drawing Before Pricing — an Engineer or a Salesperson?
The first reply to your RFQ tells you everything. If the response is a price within an hour and no questions, nobody engineering-reviewed your part. If the reply asks about datums, tolerances on critical features, or flags a thin-wall risk, the quote came from someone who read the drawing.
3. Which Drawing Revision Will You Quote and Produce Against?
Specifically: will the revision be stated on the quote, the work order, and the inspection report? Suppliers without revision control will eventually ship you the wrong version — the only question is when.
4. What Inspection Report Ships With the Parts?
Listen for specifics: full-dimension or critical-dimension report, measured values, instrument used, CMM for geometric callouts, revision referenced. “Quality is guaranteed” is not an answer; a sample report is.
5. What Are Your Payment Terms — and What Changes Them?
Standard terms for a first order exist for a reason. What matters more is the direction: terms usually improve with history, not with repeated early payments. A supplier who demands 100% upfront on a first order while promising flexible terms later is showing you their cash position, not their confidence.
6. What Happens If a Part Fails My Incoming Inspection?
The answer you want: replacement or rework at their cost, with root-cause analysis before the next batch ships. The answer to avoid: any version of “this has never happened”. Every shop ships a bad part eventually; the difference is what happens next.
7. Will You Sign an NDA Before Receiving the Drawing?
Most reputable suppliers sign readily. Hesitation, or a request to wait “until the order is confirmed”, means your drawing circulates unprotected during the quoting stage — when it is seen by the most eyes.
8. What Exactly Does the Quoted Price Include?
Surface treatment? Packaging? Which inspection level? Which trade term — EXW, FOB, DAP? Quotes that look cheapest are often the ones with the most exclusions. Ask for the exclusions in writing; a serious supplier states them without being pushed.
9. How Fast Do You Reply — and in What Timezone Reality?
A one-business-day reply commitment is meaningful only if it survives contact with the timezone difference and Chinese holidays. Ask how questions are handled after the order — named contact, working hours overlap, response commitment — because post-order communication is where projects are actually won or lost.
10. Can You Share a Reference Part or Case Similar to Mine?
Not necessarily by customer name — many projects are confidential. But a supplier with relevant experience can usually describe the part class, the materials, the tolerances held, and the tricky detail they solved, without revealing who it was for. Vague capability statements in place of specifics suggest the experience is thinner than the website claims.
How to Weigh the Answers
No supplier scores perfectly on all ten — and neither does any buyer. What the questions really measure is transparency: a supplier who answers directly, including the uncomfortable parts, has already passed the most important test. One who dodges, over-promises, or answers questions you did not ask has failed it, whatever the price.