Private-label MCB programmes used to start with a rating list. In 2026 they start with a housing drawing. Importers want the colour, the laser window and the carton language locked before the tool is cut, because a late change on a 1,000-piece MOQ burns the first eight weeks.

The factories that win these programmes keep the mold in-house and send a first-article photo set — not a PDF of a similar part. Panel builders in Spain, Poland and the UAE have all written that into the RFQ this year.

Our OEM desk quotes the tool, the first article and the FCL as one line. If the housing colour is not in the existing family, we say so on day one instead of after the deposit.