The switch is a schedule decision before it is a price decision
Buyers change suppliers for reasons that are usually not about money: a delivery that slipped, a quality drift nobody caught, a communication breakdown, a factory that stopped answering. Occasionally it is price, but even then the decision is defended on schedule. What follows is a period in which the project has no confirmed production, and every party downstream — the installer, the merchant, the site programme — continues to assume the original date.
That is the honest framing. A new supplier does not resume a project at the point the old one stopped. It restarts a qualification process that the old supplier had already completed, and most of that process is invisible because it happened in the first weeks of the original relationship and nobody wrote it down. The cost of the switch is therefore the length of that re-qualification, not the difference in the quote.
What does not travel with the order
A purchase order is a document. What actually made the previous supplier able to produce to specification was a set of agreements that lived outside it:
- An approved sample, signed and dated, which is the physical reference for colour, glaze and profile.
- Tooling and the drawings it was cut from, which belong to whoever the tooling agreement says they belong to, and which may be sitting in a rack at the previous factory.
- Tolerances that were agreed verbally and never written, such as how much variation in shade is accepted between firings.
- Packaging that passed a transit trial, including the carton mark artwork and the inner protection that was tuned over several shipments.
- The document set for the destination market, already matched to the model and the market rather than assembled from a general folder.
None of that transfers automatically. A new factory receives a drawing and a specification, and it will produce something that meets the drawing and the specification — which is not the same as producing something that matches the sample in the buyer’s showroom. The gap between those two outcomes is what re-qualification closes.
The order the re-qualification has to run in
There is a sequence that works and a sequence that produces expensive rework, and the difference is the order rather than the effort. The diagram below shows the five nodes that have to be re-established, in the order they have to be re-established.
The figure reads left to right, and the band underneath names what each stage is really testing. The sample node answers a question about appearance: is this the object the buyer’s customer saw. Specification confirmation answers a question about consistency: does the factory understand which properties are fixed and which may vary between firings. The bulk run tests whether the sample result survives repetition. Packaging and the carton mark test whether the goods arrive intact and identifiable. Loading and seal test freight: whether the load is stacked, braced and counted the way the consignment requires. A failure at any node sends the project back to that node, which is why the sequence cannot be compressed by doing several at once.
Sample before specification, not after
The instinct when time is short is to confirm the specification first and sample afterwards, because the specification is a document and a document feels faster. It is the wrong order. A specification written before a sample exists is a specification written from the previous factory’s assumptions, and it will contain requirements the new factory reads one way and the buyer meant another. The sample surfaces those disagreements in a physical object, where they are cheap to settle.
Practically, this means the first act of a supplier change is a sample request against the drawings plus the old approved sample as a reference, with a written note of which one governs where they differ. That note is the most useful page in the file, because it forces the buyer to decide whether it is buying the drawing or buying the object it already sells.
Specification confirmation is where the losses hide
Once a sample is approved, the specification has to be confirmed item by item, and this is the stage that projects skip because it looks like paperwork. What goes wrong is not usually the headline properties. It is the secondary ones: which finish the model is produced in, whether the seat and cover are supplied and to what standard, how the trapway is configured for the market’s drainage, what the carton mark has to carry, and which document set the destination requires.
Each of those is a small decision that becomes a large one after the bulk run starts. A finish that is not in production for that model is a schedule problem discovered at pre-production. A document that the market requires and the factory does not hold is a shipment held at the border. Confirming the list in writing before production is the cheapest hour in the whole switch.
Where the schedule actually goes
A production lead time of 30–40 days is the part of the schedule everybody quotes, and it is the part that matters least in a switch, because it only starts once the sample and the specification are settled. Ahead of it sit sampling, courier transit, the buyer’s own approval loop, and any revision. Behind it sit packing, carton printing where artwork is new, inland transport, booking and vessel scheduling.
So the switch does not cost a lead time. It costs a lead time plus the qualification that preceded the original order, and the practical question for a buyer is not how to shorten the production run but how much float the project has above it. Where the float is thin, the honest options are to move the delivery date, to ship part of the range from the old supplier while the new one qualifies, or to accept a narrower range in the first shipment. Choosing between those is a commercial decision. Pretending the run can absorb the qualification is not.
The commercial loose ends of a switch
Alongside the technical re-qualification there is a set of commercial items that have to be closed with the outgoing supplier, and they are frequently left open until they become leverage:
- Tooling release, if the buyer owns the tooling, including who packs the master and what condition it is expected to be in.
- Open orders and cancellations, agreed in writing rather than assumed, including what happens to material already cast.
- Payment position on the order in progress, settled against the delivery actually made rather than against the original schedule.
- Documents already issued, so the new supplier is not asked to reissue certificates that belong to another factory’s production.
- Any warranty obligation on goods already delivered, which stays with the supplier that made them.
The last point is worth stating plainly because it is often misunderstood. A lifetime warranty on the ceramic body attaches to the body that was fired, and a new supplier cannot take it over. Goods made by the previous factory remain that factory’s responsibility, and a buyer who wants continuity of cover should keep the paperwork that identifies which pieces came from which run.
What to put in the first message to the new factory
A supplier taking over a running project is being asked to hit a date it did not set, against a specification it did not write, for a customer who is already disappointed. The brief that works is short and unusually concrete: the printed model codes, the market and the document set it requires, the sample reference and where it is, whether tooling exists and who owns it, the packaging and carton mark that must be reproduced, and the date the goods have to be on the water. Add the reason for the switch. A factory that knows a previous delivery slipped will manage the schedule differently from one that assumes it is quoting a fresh project.
Our own position on taking over a running project is that the qualification sequence above is not negotiable, but it can be run fast when the buyer arrives with the file. Samples are free, so the first node costs transit rather than tooling, and where the model already exists in our range — 89 vitreous china models across two-piece, one-piece, wall-hung, back-to-wall, smart, bidet and accessible types — the sample is a stock model rather than a new tooling project. Production runs 30–40 days from approval. Payment is TT or LC. The ceramic body carries a lifetime warranty, and colour and matt finishes carry a per-model minimum of 30 pieces.
What we will not do is confirm a delivery date before the sample and the specification are settled. That date would be a guess dressed as a commitment, and in a switch it is the guess that damages the relationship rather than the delay.
Frequently asked questions
Why is switching suppliers a schedule problem rather than a price problem?
Because a new supplier restarts a qualification the old one had already finished, and that qualification sits ahead of the production lead time. The saving on the quote is realised once; the schedule loss is felt by every party downstream of the delivery date.
What has to be re-qualified first?
The sample. It settles appearance before anything is written down, and it exposes disagreements between the drawing and the object the buyer already sells. Specification confirmation, the bulk run, packaging and loading follow in that order, and none of them can correct an earlier failure.
Can the old approved sample be used as the reference?
Yes, and it should be, but the brief has to say whether the sample or the drawing governs where the two differ. Without that sentence the new factory follows the drawing and the buyer compares against the sample, and the argument arrives with the first container.
What happens to tooling when a supplier changes?
It depends on the tooling agreement, not on the purchase order. If the buyer owns the master, the release terms and the condition on handover should already be written. If the factory owns it, the new supplier will need new tooling and that sits ahead of sampling.
Does the warranty on delivered goods transfer to a new supplier?
No. A ceramic body warranty attaches to the body that was fired, so goods made by the previous factory remain its responsibility. Keep the records that tie each delivery to a production run, and the cover stays traceable.
How should the new factory be briefed?
With the printed model codes, the destination market and its document set, the sample reference, the tooling position, the packaging and carton mark to reproduce, and the date the goods must ship. Include the reason for the switch, since it changes how the schedule is managed.
Related on this site
Documents and certificates
- Catalogues, drawings and the test reports we publish
- Send the file for a project already in progress
Related reading
- Why samples come before a container order
- How to choose a ceramic toilet supplier
- Who Owns the Mould: Protecting a Design