Starting out
Writing a specification suppliers can price.
A specification is the only thing an inspector, a laboratory and a court can compare goods against. It has to be measurable, it has to name the tolerance, and it has to be agreed before a price. Everything expensive that happens later is traceable to a specification that used adjectives.
Measurable, or it does not belong.
Good quality, premium grade, food grade, export quality and A-grade are not specifications. They are adjectives that both sides read differently, and every dispute over Indonesian goods that reaches an argument started with one of them.
The test is simple. Could an inspector with an instrument, or a laboratory with a method, say yes or no? Moisture below a stated figure by a stated method is a specification. Well dried is not. Fillet weight between two numbers is a specification. Large is not.
Where a property genuinely cannot be measured, and finish and colour often cannot, the answer is a physical reference. A sealed retained sample at the producer, signed and dated, turns an unmeasurable property into a comparison.
What a specification contains.
The order below is roughly the order in which each element decides something. A supplier reading it should be able to price without asking a question, and if they do ask questions, that is a good sign rather than a bad one.
- 01
Identity
What the product is, in the terms the trade uses, with the botanical or zoological species in Latin where substitution is possible. On seafood, spices and timber this line alone prevents the most common expensive error.
- 02
Grade and process
The trade grade if one exists, plus what it actually means physically, because most Indonesian grades are conventions rather than published standards. Name the process where it changes the product, as wet hulling does with coffee.
- 03
Measured properties
Moisture, particle size, active compound, defect count, dimension. Each with a limit, a tolerance and the method used to test it. Two laboratories using different methods produce different numbers on the same material.
- 04
Appearance and reference sample
Colour, finish and anything else judged by eye, tied to a sealed sample rather than described. Photographs help and they are not a reference.
- 05
Packing
Inner packing, carton, pallet, marking and labelling. This is where a surprising share of claims originate, because packaging is what fails on a long tropical voyage.
- 06
Documents
Which certificates travel with the goods, issued by whom, and what each has to state. A certificate of analysis is only useful if the specification said what it must cover.
- 07
Inspection and acceptance
Who inspects, when, against what, and what happens if it fails. Agreeing this before production is what turns a failed lot into a process rather than a negotiation.
The words that cause disputes.
Approximately, around, standard, normal, usual and as per sample without a sample all mean something different on each side of a language boundary. They survive into contracts because they sound reasonable in English and because nobody wants to seem difficult at the point of agreement.
As per sample deserves its own warning. It is a perfectly good term when a sealed, signed, dated sample exists at both ends. Without one it means as per whatever either side remembers, which is worth nothing when the container is already in a yard.
Questions buyers ask.
Is a long specification a problem for a small workshop?
A long one can be. A precise one is not. Small Indonesian producers deal with precision perfectly well and struggle with volume of text in a second language. Keep it short, keep the numbers, and put the reasoning in a covering note rather than in the specification itself.
Should the supplier write it?
They can draft the technical parts and you should own it. A specification written entirely by the seller describes what they already make, which may be excellent and is not the same as what you asked for. Take their draft, add your tolerances and your acceptance terms, and agree the result.
What if I do not know the trade terms yet?
Borrow them. The product pages on this site set out how each product is graded, what the measured properties are and what the trade conventions mean, specifically so a buyer can write a specification before they know the trade.
Read next.
What a sample actually proves
The narrow question a sample answers, and why the sealed duplicate you never open is worth more than the one you evaluate.
Inspecting before it sails
The five moments worth inspecting, what a report has to contain, and the mistake that makes an inspection worthless.
How to read an export quotation
Nine things a quotation has to say before it can be compared to another. What each line means and which absences matter.
Where meaning gets lost
Many disputes start as a specification agreed in a second language. What survives translation and what does not.
Indonesian coffee
Arabica and robusta origins, wet-hulling, how the national standard grades a lot, packing, and the documents a buyer needs including EUDR.
Indonesian pepper
Two named Indonesian origins, and the FAQ against ASTA distinction that decides what actually arrives in the bag. What a pepper contract has to name.
Indonesian teak furniture
Where it is built, what the trade grade letters actually mean, the mandatory V-Legal document, and why SVLK alone no longer answers the EU.
What acceptance sampling actually proves
An inspector opens a fraction of the cartons. What that fraction can and cannot tell you, and how to set the level before a dispute.
How to read a certificate of analysis
Five checks that take a minute each and catch most of what is wrong with the certificates buyers accept daily.
What to test, and where
Which properties need a laboratory rather than an inspector, and whether to test at origin or at destination.
Trade fairs and sourcing trips
A stand costs money, which filters some noise and not all of it. How to work a fair and use the week around it.
Writing a defect list
Critical, major and minor, defined for your product. The document everybody skips and the one that decides disputes.
Approving the first piece
One unit made to your specification, approved in writing before the run starts. The last cheap moment in the process.
What an export contract should say
Twelve clauses that decide what happens when something goes wrong, and the three buyers leave out and regret.
Private label and OEM
Your brand on their product, or a product developed for you. Two different deals with two different risks.
Labelling for your market
Printed in Indonesia and judged in your country. What has to appear, and who carries the obligation.
Managing a supplier over years
Quality drifts slowly and nobody announces it. What to measure and when to add a second source.
Specifying the packaging
Left to the factory, packaging is chosen on cost. What to specify instead, and why.
Grades and grade names
Premium, Super, Grade A. Which grade systems are real and what to write instead.
Getting a change made
Asking produces agreement and not always change. How to make a modification stick.
Why natural products vary
Wood, stone, shell and crops are not manufactured. How to specify variation rather than fight it.
What a sample order includes
Samples answer questions if you ask properly. What to request so the answers are usable.
Sourcing from Indonesia?
Tell us the product, the quantity and the destination. We come back with what it involves before anyone talks about money.