Re-Evaluating Your Contract Manufacturing Partnerships

Imagine a customer buys hot chocolate in January and loves it! They buy the same hot chocolate later that year in December, but it looks and tastes different. Why?

All companies want their customers to have the same great experience every time they purchase from them, but in the real world of manufacturing, small changes can happen with products. This is a process known as “spec drift,” and this happens more often than people realize.

This is why an Annual Product Review is so important for business owners to utilize. It allows the brand as well as the contract manufacturer to look at the whole year of production and make sure that the product is the same as it’s supposed to be, with no changes in the manufacturing or production processes. 

Product Review 

By using the annual review tool, brands can line up products from each batch made that year and compare them to each other. This helps them to easily spot any potential differences or subtle changes with the product. 

Imagine each of these hot chocolates on their own, a company probably would not notice any changes. However, seeing it side-by-side like this shows the obvious difference in how the product has changed over time. 

This shows the company a number of important things:

• What has changed

• When did it change

• If it need to be corrected

Process Review

As a brand owner, you are still responsible for what actually gets put on the shelves, even if your product is made by a contract manufacturer. 

The process review shows:

• Batch records

• Operator notes

• Raw material or supplier changes

• Whether the brand was notified of changes

The process review also gives you an opportunity to experience the production floor to make sure that the processes happening are the processes that were agreed upon at the start of the partnership.

Quality Review

The quality review focuses on the agreements made between the brand owner and the contract manufacturer regarding product quality and compliance. 

It ensures that:

• Food safety certifications are up to date

• Inspections were completed

• Personal protective equipment (PPE) rules are in place & followed

• Policies and procedures are being enforced

This helps the brand owner in ensuring that their business is running in a safe environment, eliminating health risks.

Reviewing the Contract

It’s smart to revisit the manufacturing contract once the product, process, and quality reviews are completed. This is because it ensures that both the business owner and contract manufacturer still agree on the policies.

These things could include:

• Pricing

• Order quantities

• Delivery expectations

• Product development plans

• Communication

Reviewing the contract gives brand owners the opportunity to fix any things that may not be working or agreed upon.

Building a Strong Partnership

The annual review gives brand owners a chance to see if the contract manufacturer that they're partnering with is benefiting the business, or the amount of desired progress isn't being made. If the partnership is going well, they can continue to collaborate and improve together. However, if the annual review makes the brand owner realize many faults in the partnership, they are able to seek other alternatives.

In total, the annual review is how brand owners and manufacturers make sure that they’re on the same page at all times regarding the product itself, manufacturing processes, and quality standards.