Buy one piece,
not the whole department.

Before the container closes

• Trigger · a shipment is 1–3 weeks out

  Pre-shipment inspection

  AQL sampling to your plan, re-measurement of the dimensions that actually matter, packaging and shipping-mark verification. You get a photographic report with data and an explicit call — release, or hold. The hold decision gets made in China, before the container closes and while it is still cheap.

  from €390 / day on site
• Trigger · loading day

  Container loading supervision

  Someone stands there while it is loaded. Quantity, carton condition, load plan, seal number, photographs. The cheapest insurance in the whole chain, and the one most brands skip until the first time a container arrives short.

  from €390 / day

Before you commit

• Trigger · a new supplier, or one you have doubts about

  Factory & supplier audit

  Capability, quality system, commercial terms — assessed on site against what you actually need, not against a brochure. Including the documents most audits never think to ask for: the certificate scope page, the subcontracting arrangements, the tooling register.

  I own factories that have been audited hundreds of times. I know which questions get prepared for and which ones do not.

  from €690 / day on site
• Trigger · a new product, or replacing a supplier

  Supplier sourcing

  Candidates identified, visited and assessed against your real requirement. You get quotes that are actually comparable — same steel, same cavities, same finish, same assumptions — instead of five numbers that cannot be put side by side.

  quoted per project

Before steel is cut

• Trigger · design frozen, tooling not yet released

  Design for manufacture review

  Your design against the process that will actually make it: wall sections, draft, gate and ejector positions, tolerance stack-up, and what each one costs. DFM at concept costs an hour. DFM after tooling costs a re-cut.

  quoted per part
• Trigger · tooling release through production sign-off

  Tooling development management

  Steel grade, cavity count, T1 through approval — and the ownership terms written into the order before money moves. The tool being yours on paper and the tool being movable in practice are two different things. Both get handled.

  quoted per tool
• Trigger · a target market requires it

  Certification support

  CE, GS, ETL, energy efficiency — coordinated with the lab and the supplier, including the design changes that come back from a failed test. That is where schedules actually slip.

  quoted per project

How the rates compare

Why these numbers, specifically

The large third-party inspection firms publish their rates — roughly US$419 per man-day for inspection and US$669 for supplier audits in China. Mine sit at the same level, deliberately. I am not competing on being cheaper than QIMA.

What is different is who turns up. Not an inspector working from a checklist someone else wrote, but someone who has run mould shops, injection and die casting — and can tell you whether the supplier's explanation for the defect is true.

Retainer clients pay €300 per inspection day, and get a number of days included each month. If you are buying more than about four days a month, the retainer is cheaper — see the pricing table. I would rather tell you that than sell you day rates you do not need.