Category: Product Inspection
The International Journal of Information, Business and Management recently reported on the garment industry and the impact on quality in the current environment. Garment factories in Bangladesh have been the site of rights abuses and fatal accidents. The industry also faces its share of traditional business challenges, including mounting international competition and a lack of formal quality management systems, researcher Hasanuzzaman writes. Common challenges to adopting quality management systems – such as Six Sigma – include a lack of financial resources, infrastructure, and education, according to the author’s interviews with factory managers. Those who had implemented quality management, however, reported better customer …
We’re answering your most frequently asked questions regarding quality inspections. For example, why should you perform QC inspections, what happens on-site, when is the best time to schedule, and more. Check out our latest video: Our quarterly newsletter is also featuring this information. Review the additional content here. Another video of interest relates to Understanding the Supplier Audit Process. Let us know what questions or topics you’re interested in learning more about in 2016!
Over the last three decades, we have inspected an innumerable amount of orders for clients looking to mitigate sourcing risk and uncertainty. As a result, one question we receive often regards identifying trends or commonalties among defects noted. We asked two of our key team members in Ningbo, China what the most commonly noted issues during inspections include: “Workmanship is the most common issue due to the variation.” ~Cynthia Liu (Business Team Manager) “Inconsistency in production.” ~Nick Chen (Technical Supervisor) Although each product is unique, we are able to classify our observations by general industry. During inspections, defects are generally classified …
We are preparing for TexWorld next week in NYC and thought it appropriate to revisit quality within the textile and garment industry. A recent question we received related to what we would evaluate during a t-shirt inspection. That’s a good question… With order details and product specifications in hand, our experienced textile/garment quality engineers go on-site and first verify the order quantity available. We confirm the quantity packaged (and labeled) vs. not packaged. That matters because a pre-shipment inspection generally requires 80% of the order be packaged at the time of inspection. An in-process inspection is scheduled around 30-50% complete. If the …
We like Ishikawa’s fishbone diagrams, also referred to as cause and effect diagrams for good reason. They’re great for figuring out why something isn’t working. For our clients, it is not uncommon for pre-shipments inspections to uncover trends in failures. When this happens, we want to know why the problem is occurring so appropriate corrective actions can be taken. We shared a useful four minute overview of fishbone diagrams some time ago, but also decided to put together a general example specific to our experience in the quality industry. ASQ and Mind Tools also have great resources and templates on …
