Part One of a Four-Part Monthly Series
The classic concern about outsourcing is that you will wake up one morning
to find out that counterfeit versions of your products are being sold by a
shady offshore firm. The reality is that this scenario is rare. Most
off-shore manufacturers are focused on contract manufacturing and have no
interest in destroying their reputation by engaging in this type of
activity.
However there is a larger danger in protecting your intellectual assets
that is much more commonplace, and while it is primarily an issue with
overseas manufacturing it can affect domestic design and production as
well. We see many companies that come to us wanting to shift production
from their existing supplier for a variety of reasons, including quality,
delivery, and cost. But they often do not have a complete
manufacturing-ready documentation package that allows for a rapid
production shift. The documentation is controlled by the manufacturer or
engineering firm that helped design the product. So they end up having to
reverse engineer their own products, or just end up living with the
deficiencies of their current supplier.
Documentation Package
The documentation package for your products is the key intellectual asset
of your company. It should be treated like the crown jewels of your
organization. All too often key pieces of documentation are only held by
outside designers or manufacturers, and companies get held hostage to
price increases or delivery issues. And once in this position many are
afraid to push their vendors to get copies of the documentation for fear
that it will trigger the very situations they are trying to avoid.
We will be presenting a series of blogs that will offer ideas for
documentation control that will ensure control of the key Intellectual
asset of your company – The Documentation Package.
Documentation Control, documentation package