Choosing a plating subcontractor badly is expensive in a specific way: you don't find out for weeks, and by then the parts are already in a container. Here are five checks that are worth doing before you place the order.
1. Does the finish range cover your whole BOM?
If your product needs nickel on one part, chrome on another, and electropolished stainless on a third, splitting that across three shops means three lead times, three quality systems, and three people to chase. Ask what they run in-house versus what they subcontract. See our service range.
2. Can they prove quality, or only claim it?
Ask for salt spray data and coating thickness measurements. A supplier that can produce a 72-hour NSS result and an X-ray thickness reading is a supplier with a measurement culture. One that says "our quality is very good" and changes the subject is not.
3. Are they environmentally compliant?
This is the risk most foreign buyers underweight. Environmental enforcement has shut down a lot of plating shops in China, often with no notice, and your parts are then trapped inside a sealed factory. Ask about wastewater treatment and RoHS compliance. See eco-friendly plating.
4. Do they have the capacity and the experience for your part family?
Plating a flat stamping and plating a welded wire basket are different problems. Ask specifically whether they have run your kind of part before, and ask to see it. Automated line capacity matters for volume and, more importantly, for consistency between batches.
5. How fast do they answer a hard question?
Send a technical question during evaluation and see what comes back. A supplier who answers "yes we can do everything" in four hours is worse than one who comes back in two days with a real question about your drawing. You are buying a working relationship, not a price.
FAQ
Where are you based?
Xiaolan Town, Zhongshan, Guangdong, in the middle of the Pearl River Delta hardware cluster. Twenty-plus years of team plating experience.
Do you accept small orders?
Yes, depending on the part. Contact us and we will tell you honestly whether it's worth running.