Remote Audit Script for Overseas RTV Mold Suppliers

If you are picking an overseas custom RTV mold shop, a remote audit is a shot list plus documents. If you cannot name the shots, you are not auditing. You are watching a brochure. The shop you want can show photos / sketch / CAD intake, a 3D-printed pattern cell, often a temporary silicone flip, a resin production mother rack, and a vacuum bench for batch RTV. The mother is not the pattern. A highlight reel of LSR presses is the wrong cell.

Overseas RTV houses can be audited without a plane ticket well enough to kill the worst mismatches: a trading desk with no vacuum bench, a "manufacturer" that only forwards STL files, a metrology corner with a rusty caliper, a "food-grade" line that shares a mill with sulfur rubber. You will not replace a full QMS audit. You will replace hope. Run it as a script. Same order every shop, so you can compare. Finished HTV/HCR/LSR parts are an HTV product RFQ here. HTV/HCR compression mold tooling stays on a RUUIPON RFQ - do not send the mold-tool PO as an HTV product RFQ here, or ask us for a high-volume LSR tool. RUUIPON has poured RTV in Bao'an since 2018. Free DFM. CAD revision about USD 50 when we edit your 3D. Prototype usually 3-7 business days after CAD lock. Production MOQ 20 pieces per design.

Before the call: the document pile

Ask for these 72 hours ahead. If they cannot produce them, the video is a sales call.

• Business license and the actual factory address (match it on the live camera to a street sign or a locked-in map pin).
• Machine list: vacuum chambers, mix benches, ovens, CNC/printers - not just LSR press tonnage.
• Tooling ownership statement: who prints the pattern, who flips the temporary silicone, who casts the resin production mother, who pours batch RTV, who archives the living mother.
• Material control: how platinum kits are identified, FIFO, leftover policy, tin vs platinum segregation.
• A redacted FAI packet from a similar RTV job (balloons, cert, fill-weights).
• Calibration list for durometer, scale, vacuum gauge.
• If they claim ISO 9001 / food-contact systems: the certificate and the scope line. Scope that says "trading" is a warning. We do not treat a certificate as an FDA-approved factory stamp.

NDA first if the pocket is sensitive. Watermark the CAD you send for the audit example.

Common mix-up: a highlight reel of LSR presses

If they claim RTV and show only heated platens and a cold-runner manifold, they are bidding the wrong cell. Cross-contamination with millable sulfur stock next to platinum food RTV is a process risk, not a vibe. ISO 3302-1 on their wall is not an audit pass. It is a drawing class. If your email still says "master, box, keys, jacket" as the audit object, you are listing shop furniture. Audit the path: pattern, often a flip, resin production mother, batch RTV.

Shot list (live, not a file)

Demand a handheld walk, not a tripoded highlight reel. Time-stamp. Ask them to show a phone clock and a unique token you sent that morning (a code on paper) in the first minute so the footage is today.

Shot A - Gate and floor plate. Entrance, then the production floor in a slow pan. You want to see whether RTV vacuum tables, print/CNC pattern cells, and any LSR/HCR cells coexist, and whether powder or millable sulfur stock sits next to platinum food RTV.

Shot B - The vacuum bench they would use for you. Chamber, pump, gauge, mix cups, 1:1 or 10:1 protocol, not a kitchen vacuum sealer under a tarp. Ask them to pull up the last traveler (they can blur customer names). A bench with no gauge is not an RTV cell.

Shot C - Pattern / mother shop. Printer, wash, UV post-cure, barrier coat, and the rack of resin production mothers. If the "manufacturer" has a bench and a shipping crate, they are a broker. Brokers can be useful. They are not the mold shop. Price them as brokers.

Shot D - Material cage. Labeled platinum kits, lot cards, tin segregated. Open one pail label on camera (grade, lot). Match it to a cert they already sent.

Shot E - Jacket / secondary. Jacket / mother-mold support-shell construction, trim benches, storage racks out of UV.

Shot F - Metrology. Durometer, hardness slabs, scale for fill-weight. Ask for a live measurement of a dummy dump against a ballooned print you provided. Watch whether they fixture a soft dump like a steel block.

Shot G - Mold storage. Jackets not stacked to warp, living mothers unsanded. Ask them to open a production RTV tool (customer-blind) and show a split land. You are looking for maintenance culture, not their other customer's IP.

Shot H - Document wall in real life. Traveler on a running pour, first-off dumps in a red box, scrap in a tagged bin. If there is no traveler, there is no traceability.

Keep the whole walk under 90 minutes. After that people perform.

Questions that belong on the live mic

1. For my mold, which bench, which process (platinum/tin RTV), which cavity count?
2. Who prints the pattern? Who casts the resin production mother? In-house or a vendor?
3. What flash at the split will you accept without a secondary, and where is trim done?
4. Show me last calibration dates on the durometer and the vacuum gauge.
5. How do you separate tin-cure / millable sulfur / platinum food RTV?
6. If the living mother is damaged in storage, who pays the recut? (Listen for hesitation.)
7. Can we video first pours at tryout with the same token?

Write answers into a one-page record. A shop that answers in machines and lot numbers is a shop. A shop that answers in adjectives is a website.

Typical shop values

Reference values only. Confirm material-specific limits against the supplier’s technical data and agree project acceptance criteria before production.

Worked example: 12-cavity bear, token walk

A confectioner had two bidders for a 12-cavity 18 mm bear, food-contact, about 2,000 dumps a month. Shop A: handheld walk, vacuum gauge on camera, platinum 10A-20A pail matched to cert, pattern/printer cell, resin mothers on racks. Shop B: tripoded LSR press reel, "we also do silicone molds." Shop A got the PO. Paying a tooling charge still needed a living-mother custody clause.

Stay on this page / skip this page

Stay when you need a remote script that kills brochure shops before you send a tooling PO.

Skip if you actually need an LSR/HCR part cell audit - a different RFQ - ask us. Skip a 90-minute walk for a local artisan with one vacuum pot you can visit. High-IP or high food-brand risk: remote is a filter, then one short on-site or a third-party inspector with your shot list.

We will not quote a brochure video as an audit. We will not skip living-mother custody because the pail looked pretty. We will not accept LSR press footage against a pour-cavity RFQ. We will not let a broker sign a no-export clause they cannot keep. We will not raise Shore A first to fix a shop with no vacuum gauge.

Related: FAI, IP protection, manufacturer, contact.

What to send / fail criteria

Put on the RFQ: "Remote audit required before tooling PO: live shot list A-H, token on camera, document pile as specified. Broker status must be declared. Object is an RTV mold (pattern / flip / resin mother / batch RTV), not an LSR press."

End the call if: address on camera does not match documents; no pattern/mother shop and no named cutting partner in writing; RTV claimed, no vacuum gauge / no mix protocol; certs that do not match the pail on camera; refusal to show metrology live; "we can do any MOQ, any class, any ISO" with one press in the shot and no pour bench.

Pass is not a gold star. Pass is "this bench could pour our skin." Then you still do DFM and FAI. Send the token and the ballooned sample print to [email protected] or contact. We will walk the bench or tell you we are a broker.

FAQ

Is a polished factory video an audit? No. Handheld, token, today, shots A-H. A tripoded reel is a brochure.

They showed ten LSR presses. Are they a mold maker? They may be a parts OEM. That is a different RFQ and usually a different site. Ask for the vacuum bench and the resin-mother rack.

Can a broker pass if they name the pour shop? Price them as a broker. Custody and recast still have to name who archives the living mother.

What remote cannot see? Jacket warp, sulfur smell, a night-shift subcontract. Bound it with tryout video, serial photos of your mother, and a tagged subset you remeasure on arrival.

What numbers should I hear on an RTV shop card? On this site: free DFM, about USD 50 when we edit 3D, prototype usually 3-7 business days after CAD lock, MOQ 20 per design. Do not paste those three onto an HTV/HCR compression-mold RFQ, and do not invent an HTV MOQ.