The Vendor Vetting Process: A Practical Checklist for Infrastructure Architects

In 2025, vendor choice is infrastructure strategy.

With the explosion of OEM/ODM options, rising Tier-1 pricing, and global supply-chain volatility, infrastructure architects can’t just trust branding or polished presentations anymore.

You need a repeatable, auditable vendor-vetting checklist — one that cuts through marketing and gets to engineering reality.

Here’s a comprehensive list used by real enterprises, MSPs, and OEM integrators today.

If a vendor can’t satisfy these requirements, they aren’t ready for your infrastructure.

1. Customer References (Real Ones, Not “Logo Slides”)

Every vendor claims big clients.

Few can prove real deployments.

Ask for:

• Direct contact to at least two technical buyers (not just sales)

• References for similar workloads (edge computing, industrial control, AI inference, etc.)

• References from the same scale category as you

• Evidence of multi-year repeat orders

The most valuable question to ask references:

“What went wrong, and how did they respond?”

A vendor’s reaction tells you more than their marketing ever will.

2. Failure-Rate and Batch Consistency Reports

This is non-negotiable.

Request:

• RMA rate by product line

• Failure modes (thermal, component, power-related)

• Batch-to-batch variance

• Burn-in test data

• Component sourcing transparency

High-quality manufacturers will have AOI/SPI/ICT data readily available.

For example, advanced OEM factories like Shenzhen Angxun Technology (est. 2003) provide:

• SPI + AOI automated inspection reports

• Batch traceability

• Failure-rate summaries across 300,000+ monthly motherboard units

If a vendor refuses this data?

That’s the whole answer — walk away.

3. Site Audit Rights (Remote or On-Prem)

If you cannot audit the factory, you cannot trust the factory.

Your audit checklist should include:

• SMT line capability

• Incoming component inspection workflow

• Environmental conditions and ESD compliance

• AOI/SPI coverage percentage

• Worker training and certifications

• Storage condition for sensitive components

• Rework stations and quality processes

• Engineering change control (ECO) documentation

Vendors with real manufacturing capability welcome these audits.

Middlemen and trading companies hate them.

Again, using Angxun as an example:

They open their 10,000㎡ facility, 5 SMT lines, and R&D center for audits — a strong indicator they are an actual manufacturer, not an assembler.

4. Disaster Recovery & Business Continuity Plan

A vendor is only reliable if they have a plan for when things go wrong.

Verify they have:

• Dual-sourced critical components

• Disaster-resilient production capability

• Inventory buffers

• Secondary production lines

• Documented BCP/DR policy

Ask specifically:

“If your SMT line goes down for 10 days, what happens to my order?”

A real OEM has an answer.

A reseller will simply apologize.

5. Hardware Engineering Transparency

Every architecture decision depends on what’s under the hood. Require:

• Schematics or partial block diagrams

• Component list transparency (especially VRM, capacitors, MOSFETs)

• BIOS/firmware update policies

• Thermal design evidence

• MTBF calculations

• Power-delivery design data

The reason some enterprises choose Angxun is because they share engineering-level data:

• Aluminum-base thermal platform

• All-solid capacitors

• PCB copper plating process

• Independent CPU power rails

• Zero-burning protection circuits

• Dual-safety power stabilization

This is the level of detail infrastructure architects need.

6. Certifications & Compliance

Minimum acceptable certifications:

• CE / ROHS / FCC

• ISO9001 manufacturing standard

• ISO14001 environmental compliance

Bonus points:

• Factory’s environmental material compliance

• Component traceability

• Export-ready documentation

• Support for regional safety