Vetting a packaging supplier is not a factory audit. It is five checks, none of which need a visit, and all of which predict how the relationship will go. Run them before the first order rather than after the first problem.
One: do they ask questions
A supplier who quotes from two lines of enquiry is not specifying, they are selling catalogue items. One who asks about the application, the load, the environment and the volume is going to quote something appropriate – and is going to be useful when something goes wrong.
This is the most predictive single signal and it costs nothing to observe.
Two: samples, willingly
Ask for a sample and see what happens. A confident supplier sends one without hesitation and usually without charge at reasonable volume. Reluctance, conditions, or a long delay tell you something about how the relationship will work.
Then test the sample properly rather than looking at it. Load it, drop it, leave it in the conditions it will see. Fifteen minutes of deliberate misuse tells you more than any data sheet.
Three: documentation on request
Material composition, and anything you will need to evidence downstream. Ask at quote stage. A supplier who can answer is measuring; one who cannot will not be able to help you later when someone asks you.
We covered the boundary of what is worth asking for in recycled content claims.
Four: what happens when something is wrong
Ask directly: if a delivery is non-conforming, what is the process. A supplier who has an answer – replacement terms, who pays freight, how quickly – has done it before. One who goes quiet has not, and you will find out at the worst moment.
Five: a technical contact, not a sales inbox
The question you will eventually have is an engineering question – a tolerance, a resin, a load case. Establish now whether there is a route to someone who can answer it. This is the check people skip, and it is the one that matters in year two.
Two things that are not worth much
Certificates on a wall, and a large customer list. Neither predicts how your order will go. A supplier’s willingness to be specific about your application does.
A cheap way to run the second check
Ask for two samples rather than one, and specify that you intend to test them destructively. The response tells you a lot: a supplier confident in the product will send them, and one who sends a single carefully prepared piece is selling rather than specifying.
Then test in the conditions that matter. Cold, if it goes into cold storage. Loaded and stacked, if it will be stacked. Left outside for a fortnight, if it will sit outside. Most failures are visible under the real condition and invisible on a desk.
What to do with the answers
Write them down while you are deciding. In eighteen months, when the question is which supplier gets the larger share, that note is worth more than the price difference between them – and it is the kind of thing nobody remembers accurately.
What we can do
We supply pallet sleeve box systems and welcome all five checks – ask us the awkward ones. Tell us what you need to be able to evidence and what your failure modes are, and we will tell you what we can commit to and what we cannot.