First of all, You must have your belt inspected if it is your first a few time buying from a new supplier. There are thousands of Conveyor belt manufacturers, agents, trading company, and even individuals in China that will tell you everything you want to hear to try to get your business. Finding a suitable and reliable partner is not as easy as you think.You may get products that is completely different from what you ordered in the first shipment to you. it would be a diaster. In order to secure your business, you must have an third party to go down to the factory where the belts are pressed to inspect the apprearance and witness the lab testing.
I have heard many stories about customer received a container of scrap belts, when they realized the fact that 3 more containers are still coming on the ocean, it is already too late.
Secondly, Factory might make mistakes due to the bad management. My customer ordered a container of DIN-W GRADE belts from a supplier in Qingdao, it is a new factory,very big and very impressive. I checked the apperances, and checked the width, gauge and length, i started to have a good feeling about them. So i asked them to cut a sample from the end of the belt. Then i put my signature on the sample, and said:\"lets go to the LAB\". The cover tensile test was quite a suprise, the cover grade is only 13mpa(should be 18mpa) the factory tenchnicial were shocked but all of a sudden they found out they used the wrong compound. I imediately advised my customer to reject the belts. They cannot imagine if these belts have been sent to them without inspection.
Thirdly, some suppliers dont deliver what they promised. One of my customer used to buy Over 300k rubber conveyor belts (NN350,3PLY)from a supplier located in Zhejiang every year and he was quite happy with this supplier in regards to the quality and delivery. In 2011, the enduser complaint to him that the belt broke down 3 weeks after installation. He sent his team to the site to splice it, it broke again in a week. Enduser was so unhappy and replaced the belt with my customers competitors belt. My customer sent the sample to me, and i did the tensile test in China\'s largest lab for Rubber and chemical products, the report shown the fabric tensile strength is only 210per ply, while the required is 350n/mm per ply. My customer lost the business, and the enduser\'s door is closed for him. He now uses third party inspection for every purchase order.
Fourthly, you must know who you are dealing with and where your belts are cured. You may try to avoid a middle man but you still may end up dealing with one of the million agents. They may have your belts made in one of the supplier that has been proven not reliable.
They may have your belts made in one of the little backyard factory where there is no quality control. I have seen one small factory in Zhejiang that joint the fabric iregularlly in the carcass on a 36\" belt, because their calendar width is too small, that really scares me.i also have seen some factories in He bei that still use the black cotton fabric for reinforcement in the belt. Imagine, if your belts are cured in those factories where people has no clue about quality. Disaster!!!
In the end, its always best to have your own quality people to be on site to coordinate with the factory QC team to double check in case of any surprices. Dont forget, not too many people in the industry can afford their price either, you cannt have the best and the cheapest, it is the reality in CHina.
I hope you find my experiences are helpfull to your business.
on 2013-06-10 02:42:00 Tags: rubber,conveyor belt,inspection,factory audit,qingdao interpreter
