Who Is the Manufacturer? How Certification Responsibility Works When You Buy Windows from China

If you are a European brand, importer or fabricator planning to buy windows from China and sell them under your own name, there is one question worth settling before the first quotation: whose manufacturer are these windows?

It sounds like a technicality. It is not. It decides whose name goes on the declaration of performance, who can be asked to produce the technical documentation, and what you are entitled to demand from your supplier for the next ten years. Getting it wrong is expensive in a way that only becomes visible during a market-surveillance enquiry — or when a client's compliance officer asks a question you cannot answer.

This guide sets out the legal answer, the obligations that follow from it, and the practical controls you should put in place with any contract manufacturer.

The legal answer in one line

EU construction products law defines the manufacturer by who puts the product on the market under whose name — not by where it is made.

> "'manufacturer' means any natural or legal person who manufactures a construction product or who has such a product designed or manufactured, and markets that product under his name or trademark" > — Regulation (EU) No 305/2011 (Construction Products Regulation), Article 2, point 19 (OJ L 88/5, 4.4.2011)

Read that definition against your own arrangement:

The country of production does not appear in the definition at all. A factory in Yantai and a factory in Bavaria are treated the same way; what changes the answer is the name on the product.

What you take on as the manufacturer

The definition is the beginning, not the end. Once you are the manufacturer, a defined set of obligations applies. These are the ones that matter most when your supply chain runs through a contract manufacturer:

• Draw up the declaration of performance in accordance with Articles 4 and 6 — Article 11, paragraph 1.
• Draw up the technical documentation that describes all relevant elements related to the required system of assessment and verification of constancy of performance — Article 11, paragraph 1, second subparagraph. This document is built from what your supplier can actually prove.
• Keep the technical documentation and the DoP for ten years after the product is placed on the market — Article 11, paragraph 2.
• Affix the CE marking correctly. Article 9, paragraph 2 sets out what must follow the marking: the two last digits of the year it was first affixed, the name and registered address of the manufacturer, the unique identification code of the product type, the reference number of the declaration of performance, the declared level or class of performance, the reference to the harmonised technical specification, the identification number of the notified body where applicable, and the intended use.
• Operate under the applicable system of assessment and verification of constancy of performance, which is set out in Annex V of the regulation and, for the product family, in the relevant harmonised standard.

Two supporting definitions are worth knowing because they come up in supplier conversations. "Importer" means a natural or legal person established within the Union who places a construction product from a third country on the Union market — Article 2, point 21. If your company is established in the EU and buys directly from China, you may be acting as both manufacturer (by branding) and importer, and the importer obligations in Article 13 apply as well — including ensuring that the manufacturer has drawn up the technical documentation and the DoP, and keeping a copy of the DoP at the disposal of market surveillance authorities.

"Factory production control" means the documented, permanent and internal control of production in a factory, in accordance with the relevant harmonised technical specifications — Article 2, point 26. This is the definition that tells you what to ask your supplier for: documented control, not a verbal assurance.

The five things your factory must be able to give you

Everything above rests on evidence that lives in your supplier's factory, not in your office. When we quote for contract manufacturing, these are the five items we expect to be asked for — and the five a serious brand should require of any supplier:

1. Factory production control records. Documented, permanent and internal control of production, maintained as routine practice — not assembled for an audit.
2. Advance written notice of change. Any change to materials, profile supplier, hardware, or process parameters that could affect the declared performance must reach you before it happens, not after.
3. Batch-level traceability. The ability to link your order to the profile, glass and hardware batches actually used, and to the inspection records for that run.
4. Sample support for type testing. Consistent, representative samples for the determination of the product type by the notified body you appoint.
5. Audit access. Willingness to be visited and inspected — during the qualification phase and at any point afterwards.

A supplier that cannot produce the first item will not be able to support the other four. That is the single most useful filter you can apply.

The reverse case, and why it matters commercially

If the windows carry the factory's brand, the factory is the manufacturer under the same Article 2, point 19 definition — and the DoP, the CE marking and the technical documentation are its responsibility.

This has an important commercial consequence for European brands: contract manufacturing does not require the factory to hold its own European approvals in order for your product to be placed on the market. The responsibility travels with your brand. What the factory must supply is not a certificate in its own name, but evidence and consistency — the five items above.

That is the arrangement this page is written against. We do not claim approvals we do not hold: if a project requires a declaration of performance, it will be issued by the brand that puts the product on the market, and our job is to make sure the factory side of that file is complete, traceable and stable.

Questions worth asking any supplier

A short list, printable, that will separate suppliers who understand this framework from those who do not:

• Who is the manufacturer of record for my product, and why?
• Can I see a factory production control record for a comparable order — not a blank template?
• How will I be told about a change in profile alloy, wall thickness, thermal barrier, glass build-up or hardware?
• What is the smallest unit you can trace — an order, a production run, or a batch of profiles?
• Which notified body would test your samples, and who prepares and stores the samples?
• If a market surveillance authority asks me for documentation in three years, what exactly will you be able to give me?

There are no trick questions here. They are simply the questions that reveal whether the compliance structure exists or is being improvised.

Frequently Asked Questions

If I buy windows from a Chinese factory and sell them under my own brand, who is the manufacturer under EU law?

You are. Under Regulation (EU) No 305/2011, Article 2, point 19, a manufacturer is any natural or legal person who manufactures a construction product or who has such a product designed or manufactured, and markets that product under his name or trademark.

Does the factory's name have to appear on the declaration of performance?

The declaration of performance identifies the manufacturer, so when you buy to your own brand the name and registered address on it are yours, not your supplier's. Whether your supplier is named anywhere else in the technical documentation is a separate question, and that documentation should be complete either way.

What must the factory provide for my technical documentation to hold up?

At minimum: documented factory production control records, advance written notice of any change to materials, profiles, hardware or process parameters, and batch-level traceability that links your order back to the profile, glass and hardware batches actually used.

Do I need a notified body if I am the manufacturer?

That depends on the harmonised technical specification and the system of assessment and verification of constancy of performance that applies to your product. For windows this commonly involves a notified body for the determination of the product type; confirm the exact system against the standard that applies to your product family.

How long must I keep the technical documentation and the declaration of performance?

Article 11, paragraph 2 of the regulation requires manufacturers to keep the technical documentation and the declaration of performance for ten years after the construction product has been placed on the market.

What if the windows are sold under the factory's brand instead of mine?

Then the factory is the manufacturer under the same definition, and the obligations that go with it sit with the factory. Responsibility follows the brand that goes on the product, not the country where the product is made.

Next step

If you are building a European brand on a Chinese supply chain, the useful work is not choosing a supplier — it is deciding what you will require of one, in writing, before the first order. Our contract manufacturing page sets out how we work to a customer's drawings and specification, including the factory-side items above. Two companion pieces go deeper: how to audit the factory before you commit, and how to manage change control and traceability once production starts. If you would rather work through this on a live project, send your drawings and the market you are selling into; we will tell you plainly which parts of the file we can support and which are yours to own.

> This article describes the EU legal framework and what a brand should expect from a contract manufacturer. It is not legal advice, and it does not state that any approval is held by us. For a specific product, confirm the applicable harmonised standard and system of assessment with your notified body or compliance adviser.