Posts by Sophie Hartzler

Have you ever received parts for your equipment and products that don’t work as expected? This is a common problem businesses face when they don’t partner with an OEM manufacturing company.

Choosing aftermarket products to save money will end up costing you more in the end. Parts will fail, take longer to ship, and don’t meet the required specifications of your products.

OEM manufacturing, however, delivers quality parts designed to fit your equipment and products. Every product you receive will work as expected and comes with additional warranties and support.

Do you want to invest in long-lasting parts guaranteed to work with your products? Check out these benefits of OEM manufacturing.

What is OEM Manufacturing?

When you see OEM manufacturing on an item, it stands for Original Equipment Manufacturer. An OEM manufacturer is a company that produces original products or parts to a product. Another company purchases the OEM parts and products to use in their products or sell to buyers under their branding.

The companies reselling the OEM parts are Value-Added Resellers or VARs. The VAR sells OEM products with added features to enhance its benefits. VARs and OEMs have a mutually beneficial relationship. 

Your car is a perfect example of an OEM and VAR relationship. The brand of the car is the VAR but they don’t manufacture every part of their vehicles. An OEM company manufactures these parts, such as the tires, seat belts, or the car battery.

OEM Manufacturing Benefits

Working with an OEM manufacturing partner guarantees the products you buy are high-quality and will properly fit in your products. Some aftermarket companies may offer similar parts but they may not fit nor offer the same compatibility.

Here are a few reasons why you need to work with an OEM original manufacturer.

Faster Response

When you need a specific part for a project or as a replacement, ordering from your top OEM manufacturers will take less time. There’s no “middle-man” as you can directly order parts from the OEM manufacturer.

Working with a third-party distributor, broker, or aftermarket company will take significantly longer. These companies may take longer to identify the part and determine whether they have a particular part or product in stock. In other cases, it will take longer for them to locate it in their storage warehouse since they distribute other products as well.

Reputable OEM manufacturers take pride in delivering their products as quickly as possible. Many monitor their delivery methods to ensure your receive your parts and products on time.

Additional Support

OEM manufacturers offer superior support when it comes to ordering or asking questions about a specific part or product you’ve ordered in the past. This is because the original engineers are a part of the OEM manufacturing company. You have access to engineering and technical support directly from the engineers.

OEM manufacturers have the greatest knowledge base of their products. They designed and crafted their products to fit a specific need or needs. From there, they tested the products to ensure they meet requirements and to find out their limitations.

OEM manufacturers know their products best. You’ll receive the most accurate information and answers to your questions directly from the source.

Quality Products

OEM manufacturers take pride in the products they create and place their name on every part and product. The OEM’s pride and confidence translate into high-quality products. OEM manufacturing companies work directly with their customers to ensure their parts fit their customers’ needs perfectly.

The success of an OEM manufacturing company largely depends on keeping their customers satisfied. Their parts and products need to continuously meet their customers’ expectations. Failing to do so can result in lost customers and a loss in sales.

What do you do if you need a part or product replaced? OEMs offer replacements that are identical, if not better, than the original part. OEMs craft their parts to meet the original part’s specifications and compatibilities.

Warranties

Parts and products manufactured by an OEM company come with a manufacturer’s warranty. This is also true for replacement parts—an advantage you can’t always get with any aftermarket company or distributor. Many OEMs will happily replace parts and offer a warranty on the replacement parts as well.

If you find a component or product has flaws, you can contact the source and request a new one. Again, OEMs value their customers’ satisfaction and are happy to help your business with any issues you may run into.

Added Value and a Longer Lifespan

OEM manufacturers like Shield Works, craft parts that are identical to the parts before. New and improved pieces meet the same specifications ensuring they offer the same performance as before.

Any spare parts offered by an OEM manufacturer will outlast and outperform any aftermarket product. OEMs use high-quality materials and regularly test all of their products for durability and reliability.

Opting for an aftermarket part or product may have cheaper upfront costs but the cost of installation and running the part will cost you more. These parts are likelier to fail and possibly damage your equipment. An aftermarket part won’t have the same specifications, warranties, and lifespan as OEM products.

A Greater Return on Investment

Partnering with an OEM manufacturing company will offer you a greater return on investment. You can order custom manufactured parts better suited for your products and equipment. Since OEM parts must meet specific requirements and specifications for your products, they’ll improve the longevity of your equipment. This level of reliability and longer lifespan will save you money and time.

OEM manufacturers look to and prepare for tomorrow meaning they’re continuously looking for ways to improve their products to better fit their clients’ needs. Working with an OEM manufacturing company will give your company and equipment an edge over the competition.

OEMs can make more accurate improvements to their parts as they already have the knowledge, design plans, molds, and testing of their current products. OEM clients can enjoy newer technology and upgrades to parts faster.

Shield Works OEM Manufacturing Is Right For You

OEM manufacturing companies believe in crafting strong business-customer relationships by offering unparalleled expertise and high-quality products. OEMs take the time to understand your business and your needs to ensure you receive the best service and products for your company.

Do you have a project you want to share? Let us know. We have the experience, knowledge, and skills to make your next big project a success!

Are you aware that around 20% of small businesses fail within a year?

Your company must stay afloat, even with a suboptimal budget. It’s tempting to jump to outsourced manufacturing because of convenience and quality. However, it doesn’t come without its risks.

So, what are the things you must be aware of?

First, you must know that it’s not a fool-proof solution. Read the rest of our guide to understand it better.

Supplier Risk

Direct arrangements with suppliers from every industry always come with risks. However, the risk can be greater when you’re sourcing from an international supplier. If you plan to outsource, you must carry out a thorough investigation.

You must know the possible source markets and suppliers. After that, you must make an in-depth risk assessment. Check the provider’s possible suppliers to know potential issues that may arise.

Your investigation must include all aspects of the supplier. It includes operations, quality, leadership, and labor. See whether their track record holds up to their promise.

This way, you’ll avoid operation disruptions because your supplier lacks a follow-through. You may also ask other helpful companies who used your potential supplier before. You’ll gain insight into working with them once you made the decision.

Quality Assurance

The results of quality failure are worse when it comes from international sources. Compared to domestic sources, the lead times for transporting products are longer. When this happens, you’ll likely suffer from serious business disruptions.

It can get so bad that it takes several months to correct the problems. To mitigate this risk, you must prepare detailed product specifications for your sources. Tell them that you’ll do some independent quality control inspections from time to time.

Take note, a decline in product quality can damage your reputation. Avoid this and spend a few weeks observing the process of manufacturing. This is cheaper and ensures quality, which is better than discovering you need a recall.

Intellectual Property Protection

Be careful of sharing information with your outsourced manufacturers. Check their origin country and their intellectual property rights first. Otherwise, someone might leak your propriety information.

It often happens when the manufacturer’s country has more relaxed IP laws. Depending on the product, you might find it better not to outsource anything. However, if your product undergoes regular upgrades, this might not be an issue.

If you think you can develop better items faster with better product quality, you may neglect patent protection. This happens when you pump out new products faster than the market’s capabilities.

Brand Reputation Risks

If you’ve been in the business for a long while, you know it takes lots of time to build a brand. Overnight success doesn’t exist because it takes years or decades. Your brand reputation matters, whether your company is local or global.

To minimize the risk to your reputation, you must consider some factors. Here are some:

Transportation and Delivery

Outsourcing to foreign services may also be troublesome if you don’t go through with the contracting process step by step. It may lead to delayed deliveries if not cleared up well enough.

The process of ordering and delivery must have a consistent time frame. Think about whether your outsourced manufacturer can keep a consistent timeframe. If it increases, you must find ways to adjust your customers’ expectations.

You may also look for alternatives to get the time frame back to its proper place. If you can’t, you’ll risk ruining all your hard work. Customers hate waiting for more than they need to, so consider this factor as your priority.

Cultural Differences

It can impact your brand identity between countries. Lots of international brands understand this concept. It allows them to thrive and penetrate markets regardless of the country.

So, ensure that your brand will adjust to various cultures. It must follow expectations, standards, and traditions. It will allow your company to promote a seamless integration.

Sourcing Labor

This conversation isn’t as prevalent. Whenever it surfaces, it can harm your brand. It would be best to get a manufacturer that uses humane standards to make and fulfill your products.

Your manufacturer’s guidelines must be similar to your country’s. It’s especially when it’s labor laws and other related guidelines for employee safety. If your country is a member of ILO, both you and your outsourced help must adhere to its guidelines.

Weather

It seems obscure, but your manufacturer’s weather can affect your brand reputation. Bad weather can result in various delays. It puts your brand in a negative spotlight because you have to reveal your labor force.

The way your provider handles some weather-related situations can bite your supply chain as well. Regardless of their faults, your brand reputation will suffer. It’s why you must put it above everything else.

Is an Outsourced Manufacturing Right for You?

Before outsourcing a manufacturer, you must think about your company’s readiness. You must weigh the advantages of this decision to your company. It matters not what industry you’re in since its benefits and drawbacks remain the same.

Benefits of Outsourcing Manufacturers

The primary reason to do this is to cut your spending. At the same time, it will boost your business’s productivity. Many companies are willing to produce popular demands.

You’ll also avoid every bureaucratic aspect of manufacturing. It’s what bogs companies down, especially for countries with stringent laws.

Drawbacks of Outsourcing Manufacturers

The laborers under your outsourced manufacturer don’t work under you. You have no direct means to boost these people’s mood or morale. If they boycott work because of difficult conditions, your company will suffer.

Invest in Outsourced Manufacturing Today

Despite the risks, an outsourced manufacturing partner can help boost your business productivity. It’s all about finding a reputable manufacturer to work with. Use this information to find the best one around.

Are you looking to work with an international manufacturer? If so, contact us today and let’s talk about boosting your company’s sales.

In placing orders, shipping works best when orders come in bulk. Though with orders that come smaller or lesser than the expected amount, it hurts the shipping companies due to the costs involved. In such circumstances, you would encounter the option for freight consolidation. This method works by putting smaller packages together into one cohesive shipment. This helps in reducing both shipment costs and environmental impact. 

Using order consolidation has its upsides and downsides. Today, we will look at these details and see how to make this work for you. 

Reduced Shipping Costs

To start, we will look at the advantages you gain from order consolidation. One of the more noticeable advantages of this arrangement is that it costs less on shipping. 

When you have shipment loads that are Less than Load (LTL), the shipping fee would depend on the size of the item. The rates would also vary between shipping companies. Though this changes when it fills up only 1/6 of the full load.

In such situations, it would end up with you paying for the rate equivalent to a full shipment size. This will have you shoulder the other underlying fees.

This changes when you go for order consolidation. By putting more LTL packages in a single shipment, you can reduce the costs of shipping.

This works well for cooperative setups. Here, you have one shipment to cover multiple packages from different sources. 

You get to divide the costs with others, letting you pay your side of the container or truck. This also applies to warehousing, especially with orders that go through international shipping.

There is also an arrangement where you have a warehouse for packages from multiple shops. For such an arrangement, you need order consolidation to answer that. This allows you to send the packages to your area in a single shipment. 

Streamlined Transportation with Faster Delivery Times

With this setup, you can get shorter times for transit and lead times. Due to how freights go in the same direction, the shipping becomes streamlined with its speed. This helps with timeframes due to how the majority of freights shipped using freight consolidation follow the same routes.

With this in mind, not only does it shorten the timeframe for the package to arrive, but it also comes without any interruptions. This means the order gets to the receiver without any stops.

Reduced Item Damage Risk

A single package on its own when placed for international shipping has a high chance of damage. It could end up getting jostled around and tossed from one corner to another without any means to secure it. This can prove detrimental as it damages the ordered item. 

When you have it alongside other packages in a single shipment, it secures the item in place. This means it has less space for it to get tossed around. You can achieve this through simpler shipping schedules.

Needing Lower Levels of Inventory

Opting for order consolidation allows you to use a consolidation warehouse to make this work. On this aspect, you need low inventory levels when fulfilling customer orders. On the business side, this helps you open up more space for other merchandise and products to sell. 

Store owners would note this as an advantage. It allows them to sell products with a higher variety. It also helps with organizing products and reduces inventory carrying costs.

Reduced Emissions and Environmental Impact

One of the things that affect the environment is fuel emissions. What makes order consolidation attractive is its approach towards efficiency. 

Not only does it apply efficiency in storage space for the shipment. It also puts it into practice with fuel emissions and costs. 

Instead of splitting up different shipments in separate runs, you end up having packages shipped by batch. This reduces the number of trucks and other transportation vehicles involved in the delivery. 

Helps Avoid Overcrowded Docks

For brick-and-mortar shops, overcrowded docks can impede in handling shipments. With this method, you can avoid overcrowded docks by reducing the number of trucks present. With more space on the dockside, you have an easier time handling the products.

This opens up towards increased efficiency. It helps avoid late shipments and unintended detention times.  

Improving Customer Satisfaction 

With order consolidation, customer satisfaction improves. Not only does it provide the products with better quality, but it also charges less on shipping. With improved customer satisfaction, they would want more.

Logistics Scheduling Becomes Complicated

For this approach, scheduling becomes one of the trickier aspects. The process of scheduling the shipments may end up being the long and heavy portion of the whole arrangement. It involves a lot of aspects of organization and execution.

If you choose to play this setup by ear, you would end up in a disorganized mess. You would end up with frequent reschedules and service calls. 

Consider going for a defined system for order consolidation. With an organized system in place, you have a simpler time dealing with such issues. 

Fulfillment Inaccuracies and Shipping Delays

Another notable problem is in the shipping in itself. Though this pertains to the other aspect, the warehouse. Order consolidation opens up a lot of complications in the scheduling. Making any wrong calls on this would cause delays in fulfillment.

The other issue that would come up would be inaccuracies. Without proper supervision, the packages may end up at the wrong address.

What you need to pull this off is a reliable logistics service provider. They can assist with situations involving warehousing and inventory.

Order Consolidation for Efficient Order Fulfillment

Using order consolidation provides a good number of advantages. It provides an efficient means for fulfilling products for orders that have smaller packages. While complicated, a reliable logistics company can help you ease out these situations.

Order consolidation is one of the solutions we offer. We can help you get started with your fulfillment needs, such as warehousing. Contact us today and we can help you get started.

You’ve just come up with a genius blueprint and need to implement it but don’t have the tools or the know-how to make your design come to life. What should you do? Where do you go from there? OEM Original equipment manufacturers are some of the most important organizations in the world.

The parts they make and the designs that they produce to keep the world as we know it spinning every day. If you were wanting to learn more about OEMs and what they do, you’ve come to the right place.

What Is an OEM Original Equipment Manufacturer?

An OEM (or Original Equipment Manufacturer) makes OEM parts or components of a part for their buyers. These buyers can be separate companies that sell those parts to consumers or other companies under their own brand.

As an example, a manufacturer of factory equipment might assemble the equipment. From there, a lot of the parts were manufactured by an original equipment manufacturer.

What Do OEMs Do?

The primary function of original equipment manufacturers is to produce new parts for a product, but they do much more on top of that. OEM sell parts to consumers or businesses seeking replacement parts for products they have purchased.

These parts can be sold through the market or vendors, or to business through business-to-business sales. Some companies will even set up partnerships with OEMs in which the OEM will manufacture the part and send it to the company for them to re-brand and use.

Who Does Business With OEMs?

A major source of business for OEMs is the work that they do with value-added resellers. Value-added resellers are companies that purchase OEM parts and upgrade or augment them to add more value before selling them.

The value that VARs add to these products is usually in the form of software upgrades or special features. VARs also take these products and bundle them together to make new products to sell under their own brand.

In most cases, original equipment manufacturers work in a business-to-business capacity. The last few years have seen increasing amounts of OEMs that are beginning to sell replacement parts directly to consumers.

There are two main industries in which consumers are purchasing OEM parts. They are the technology industry (particularly computers) and the automotive industry.

Both industries have a large number of people who work on and build their own devices or machinery. It is less expensive for them to source the original part and complete the work themselves. It also keeps the warranty for their device or machinery in place.

Benefits of Original Equipment Manufacturers

There is a multitude of benefits that come with getting new parts from the original equipment manufacturer:

• Top Quality: There are a lot of ways to get replacement parts, but nothing will beat the original equipment manufacturer part. It is identical to the original part that it is replacing. Though it may cost more than other options the quality is better.
• Durability: OEM parts are more durable. They come with the added benefit of knowing the materials used to make them, and they tend to be better made.
• Lifespan: OEM parts last much longer before requiring a replacement part. The processes used to make them and the materials that make up the parts are both top-notch.

OEM parts are made specifically for the product that is being used and will work perfectly as a replacement. They are made to precise specifications and most times they come with lifetime warranties. If the part does go bad and requires a replacement that replacement part can be obtained for free.

These benefits also spill over into the bottom line of your business. Working directly with original equipment manufacturers can save you money and time.

By working with an OEM, a company can save money in investment into the manufacturing of the parts they need. This also shortens the turnaround time that it takes for producing those parts.

Other OEM Services

There are a lot of other services that original equipment manufacturers provide that can be a valuable asset to you and your company.

Some OEMs are able to customize procedures and create specialized in-house processes for manufacturing OEM parts for you and your business.

Depending on what you need, original equipment manufacturers can produce new innovations that you draw up. OEMs are able to create new equipment and parts for whatever your needs may be.

OEMs can also be a great resource for outsourcing important tasks or parts of the manufacturing process. This can be especially important if you wish to keep your design safe and secure.

Best of all, original equipment manufacturers are able to implement these specialized processes at their own manufacturing plant. This can give them an opportunity to apply their expertise and make manufacturing efficient.

Another service that OEMs can provide is helping you to secure intellectual property patents. This is a great idea if you develop new ideas and innovations. Doing this protects your ideas from being stolen and implemented by other manufacturers.

OEMs work with companies that will look after your intellectual property. It doesn’t matter if it is copyrights, trademarks, or patents.

How to Start

Now you know all about OEM original equipment manufacturers and how they can benefit you. Whether you are a business using a certain product, a VAR looking to upgrade parts, or a consumer trying to source a replacement part, OEMs are here to help.

Get started today with all of your original equipment manufacturing needs.