Quality Report

When a factory is merrily producing your garments on its production lines you must ensure that the garments are to your sealed samples.

Sealed samples set the garment standard for production and the quality report ensures that the production in work check reviews and itemises the main production points and then has a notes section to identify any problematic areas.

The form specifies the factory details complete with docket number (instruction to cut for factory) and the pattern that relates to the production run. A summary of the order is on the top of the form which identifies who the customer is for, the quantity and the actual delivery date of the order.

Critical measurements are itemised again with the size required as well as the actual measured sizes. Comments will list any major problematic areas on the quantity checked.

A cross section of garments are measured by size and for orders its normally at least 10% quantity check of the final order There are exceptions of course e.g. if I was delivering an order to a new boutique and it was say 50 units I would QC every garment to make sure that the total order was 100%. However, if I was delivering in a 3000 order to the likes of Makro a 10% check would highlight if there were problems. If there was a reoccurring problem I would then conduct a further 10% check and if that did not satisfy the problem I would conduct a 100% check. There is no point in an order being delivered to be rejected. With larger organisations they have their own in house QC department and if they demand a full inspection they charge you for it…big time. Can be as much as £1 a garment and that is a large cost to bear on an order of 3000 units.

A top of the lay QC is when the first set of production garments goes down the line with the machinists and you check the finished garments straight away. Sometimes these can be specially requested by the buyer and yourself.

There is also a column for changing delivery dates. A word of advice from the heart. Never give out to a factory your actual delivery date to the CMT unit. There are always always always problems in production; the buttons arrive late, the hangers the wrong colour, the fabric has flaws in and needs a 100% inspection before cutting so build in some slack into your production process beforehand.

Always put in 2-3 weeks extra for delivery dates many buyers do slap on a late delivery charge and it can be as much as 10% of the contract order value. It’s far more impressive to call the buyer and say that your production is slightly early!

Another important piece of advice is to conduct on the line in work checks…this is when you actually walk along the machinists and pick up garments that they are working on or just finished. We did this a lot with M&S and I thought at the time what a good idea it was at the tender age of 22! It makes the machinist try a little bit harder to produce excellent work as they know you will be inspecting THEIR workmanship in front of them. It’s also good to praise the individual machinists when they do a good job too – then they warm to you and try a little harder again.

QualityReport_FashionCapital_ToTT – Check List