Questions to Ask a Manufacturing Company
Twenty questions for a plant visit or supplier review, covering capacity and bottlenecks, delivery and yield records, workforce turnover, compliance, single-source risk, and what happens when something goes wrong.
The questions
Open any question for the note
How many shifts are you running, and how full is the plant at the moment?
Why ask it
A plant at ninety percent has no room for your growth or their mistakes. A plant at forty percent is cheap but may be losing money, which shows up later as price rises or a sudden closure. Ask for the figure, not the impression.
What is your bottleneck operation today?
Why ask it
Every factory has one, and the managers who run their plant well can name it without pausing, along with what they are doing about it. A claim that there is no bottleneck means either the plant is idle or nobody is measuring.
What was your on-time delivery over the last twelve months, and how do you define on time?
Why ask it
The definition does most of the work: to the original promise, to the revised promise, to the week, or to the day. Suppliers reporting high nineties usually measure against dates they have already moved.
What is your first-pass yield, and where does most of the scrap come from?
Why ask it
Scrap concentrates in one or two operations, and knowing which ones tells you what your product will be exposed to. If they can quote yield but not its source, the number is being reported upwards rather than used.
How long does a changeover take, and how often do you change over?
Why ask it
This determines the real minimum batch and whether small repeat orders are welcome or resented. Long changeovers plus frequent products means the schedule is fragile and your order will be the one pushed.
What is the average tenure on the shop floor, and what is turnover on the night shift?
Why ask it
Night shift turnover is the most honest labor figure in a plant and predicts quality variation between shifts. High churn also tells you training is a constant cost, which eventually appears in either your price or your defect rate.
How is a new operator trained, and how long before they run a line unsupervised?
Why ask it
Look for documented work instructions and a sign-off step rather than shadowing. If the answer is that people pick it up, quality depends on individuals rather than the process, and you will see it when they leave.
How much of your equipment is more than ten years old, and what is on the capital plan?
Why ask it
Old machinery is not automatically a problem, but a plant with no capital plan is being harvested rather than invested in. Ask what was bought in the last two years and what it replaced.
When did you last have unplanned downtime that affected a customer?
Why ask it
You want the date, the cause, and what changed afterwards. A specific story is reassuring, a claim of none is not, because everyone has a broken machine and the difference is whether they talk about it.
Who are your three largest customers by share of revenue?
Why ask it
Concentration cuts both ways. If one account is half the plant, that customer sets the schedule and their loss is your supply crisis. If they will not give even rough percentages, ask instead whether any single customer is over a quarter.
How many single-source components are in your bill of materials, and which ones worry you?
Why ask it
The worry list is the useful part, and experienced operations people carry it in their heads: one connector, one alloy, one plating shop. It also shows whether they have looked at their own supply chain in any depth.
How far out does your order book run, and how firm is the back half?
Why ask it
This tells you whether the plant is planning or reacting, and how much notice you would need to give. A long book with soft forecasts behind it usually means expedite fees and reshuffled schedules.
Which regulations apply to this plant, and when were you last inspected?
Why ask it
Depending on the product this may cover food safety, medical devices, pressure equipment, chemicals, emissions, or export control. Ask for the date and the outcome of the last inspection, including any findings still open.
What was your recordable injury rate last year, and what caused the most recent one?
Why ask it
Safety performance correlates with general operating discipline, and the story of the last incident tells you how the plant investigates. Defensiveness here often runs alongside defensiveness about quality.
How would you trace a finished unit back to its batch, machine, and shift?
Why ask it
Ask them to demonstrate it on something in the warehouse rather than describe it. Recalls, warranty claims and customer complaints all depend on this working, and it either works in minutes or it does not work.
What happens here when a customer complaint arrives?
Why ask it
Listen for who owns it, how quickly containment happens, and whether root cause analysis produces a documented change. If the answer stops at replacing the parts, expect the same defect twice.
What improvement work is running now, and what has it saved?
Why ask it
Real programs have a named owner, a board on the wall, and numbers that predate your visit. Posters without figures, or a lean initiative nobody on the floor can describe, mean it finished years ago.
What is your plan if this building is unusable for a month?
Why ask it
Fire, flood, and utility failure are the ordinary causes. You are looking for whether tooling could be moved, whether a sister plant could run your part, and how much finished stock exists as a buffer.
How do you handle a rush order, and what does it displace?
Why ask it
Every expedite pushes something else out, and the answer tells you whether you would be the one favored or the one delayed. Ask what the expedite costs and who has authority to approve it.
What do you wish new customers understood about working with you?
Why ask it
A closing question that often produces the most practical answer of the visit: forecast accuracy, drawing changes sent late, packaging expectations, or approvals that hold the line up. It also tells you where their last relationship went wrong.
Making a plant visit worth the trip
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Arranging the visit
Ask to walk the floor, not just the meeting room
Say in advance that you want to see the production area, the finished goods store, and the quality lab. A visit confined to a conference room with a slide deck tells you the plant is not being shown for a reason.
Ask who will be there
You want the operations or plant manager and someone from quality, not only the sales contact. If nobody with production authority is available, move the date rather than accept the meeting.
Check safety and photography rules first
Steel-toed shoes, glasses, hearing protection and a short induction are normal. Ask in advance whether you may photograph, and if not, take written notes on the same points instead.
What to look at while you walk
- Work in progress stacked between stations, which shows where the flow actually stalls
- The rework or hold area: its size and how old the tags are
- Whether the metrics board is current or three months stale
- Housekeeping in the tool room and maintenance area rather than the entrance
- Whether operators have work instructions at the station and whether they match what they are doing
- Calibration stickers on gauges and test equipment, and their dates
Who to talk to
Ask an operator a simple question
What do you do when a part looks wrong. The answer, and whether the manager lets it be given, tells you more about the quality culture than any certificate on the wall.
Ask quality separately from sales
Quality managers will usually tell you the truth about open findings and recurring defects if the commercial pressure is not in the room. Request ten minutes with them alone.
Documents worth requesting
- The nonconformance or corrective action log for the last year, redacted if needed
- A recent process capability study or inspection report for a comparable part
- Certificate scopes and expiry dates, checkable with the issuing body
- Calibration schedule and maintenance records for the machines that would run your work
- The last customer complaint and its closed-out root cause report
Afterwards
Write up what you saw within a day, while the details are still clear, and separate what you were told from what you observed. Send a short note listing anything promised during the visit, since verbal commitments about capacity, lead times, and inspection tend to evaporate between the plant and the contract. If you are comparing several plants, score them on the same handful of measures rather than on impressions, because the tidiest factory is not reliably the best one.