LED Industry
Today our SBE inspectors performed an LED inspection in the city of Shenzhen, China. China is a leading country on the production of LEDs. It is focused on low price LEDs and right now is competing head to head against South Korea and Taiwan who used to lead the world production. In China, the industry grew at a double digit rate during 2014 and it is expected to keep the speed during 2015. On the contrary, most LEDs manufactured in China are sold in China. Still, international sales are catching up, so get ready for a waterfall of Made in China LEDs in your closest supermarket! Notwithstanding, the LED world demand is still big and China has become the place to get good quality at a good price.
However, you can never be 100% sure of the quality you are buying until you have it.. or until your SBE inspector checks it for you!
The Mission
This was a sample inspection at a new supplier. A sample inspection is done when we decide to check a sample of a product. After that, the customer will decide whether to place an order or not – depending on the sample. Normally, after the inspection the supplier will send the sample to the customer.
This time the factory was pretty close to Shenzhen’s city center. We only had to drive around 40 minutes to get there.
The Procedure
This is the first time SBE was visiting this supplier, so during the Opening Meeting each party talked about their company and what they were expecting from this inspection. This was an order of 10 pieces, the sample to test was defined to be only one unit.
In every inspection we focus on workmanship and on tests. An LED workmanship might seem very easy to check because of the product being of a simple structure, however it is a very tricky product. You need to pay close attention and really know the structure to know if the product is ok or not and to know where the most common errors are located. Once we make sure the workmanship is correct, we move on to the next part: the tests.
We need to perform several tests for this kind of product, including electromagnetic interference test, IES test, voltage test and Spectrophotocolorimeter test.
- – The Electromagnetic Interference test helps us to make sure the LED will not cause any interference with radios and other receivers.
- – Voltage test is to measure the voltage across the LED.
- – Spectrophotocolorimeter test helps us determine different parameter of the LED including luminosity, chromaticity and temperature.
- – IES test is to check total luminous flux and luminous intensity.
But this does not end here, we need to perform other tests in a special facility. For that we called our partner in Shenzhen, a private lab who will help us to provide the final test results to the customer.
Inspections done in Real Time
This was a very important inspection. It will decide if the customer wants to proceed with this supplier or if he wants to move to another one. Thanks to SBE’s Real Time application, the customer will receive all the information that is happening during the inspection in real time.
Every time the inspector takes a picture or writes something in the app, our customer can see it live on their computer. Isn’t it easier this way? Just imagine: you are watching the inspection and you realized there is something missing. You can just call the supplier right away and ask them about it! This really gives you more control in your supply chain!
What were the Overall Results?
The Final Report of the inspection shows that:
- – The supplier has finished all the production.
- – The appearance and dimensions of the product were correct
- – There was no serial number in the product.
- – The supplier showed us the packing of the product to check it.
- – The tests were alright, we will send the results to the customer.
- – Finally, we will send the LED to our partner to further test the product.
- – So the overall result is: FAIL
- – Why is it a fail? The labels were missing for the serial number. Since it is a sample inspection, the supplier can amend this with no problems! Wt still have to wait for the results from our partner to determine the final quality of the LED, so we will see what is the final result..