Basic Concept of Quality, Quality Control and Inspection in Apparel Industry
Mayedul Islam
Merchandiser at Fashion Xpress Buying House.
Badda, Dhaka, Bangladesh.
Email: mayedul.islam66@gmail.com
What is quality?
American Society for Quality Control (ASQC) defines quality as “A systematic approach to the search for excellence. According to International Standard Organization (ISO), “Quality is the fulfillment of the specified requirements for a product or service”.
However, quality also means much more, they include:
The degree of excellence that an item possesses.
The best money can buy.
Meeting a specification.
Not more than 1% defective a lot.
Anything Japanese.
Quality is when the customers come back not the goods.
Quality in apparel industry refers to the product free from staining faults, sewing defects, fabric faults, size measurement faults, matching of color and stripe faults, cutting faults, etc.
Synonyms: Productivity, Cost reduction, Scheduled performance, Sales, Customer satisfaction, Team work, and many more.
Dimensions of quality:
Over dimensioned quality
Under dimensioned quality
Dimensioned quality
To achieve dimensioned quality in apparel industry, the organization’s staffs should have exact knowledge of the requirement profile of the products. This part can only be fulfilled if the information regarding the quality is freely exchanged between the various interfaces of the process.
What is quality control?
The method of checking, analyzing, verification and controlling the desired or expected quality parameters of the garments is said to be quality control.
Garment inspection:
Inspection can be defined, in the apparel industry, as the visual examination or review of raw materials (such as fabric, Buttons, Zippers, Sewing threads, Trims, etc), partially finished components of the garments and completely finished garments in relation to some standards, specifications or requirements, as well as measuring the garments if they meet the required measurements.
For inspection, to be effective, the entire inspection loop must be completed.
Fig: Garments inspection circle
General Information about fabric inspection:
The general rules for inspection are mentioned below:
There is no standard viewing condition for inspection fabrics.
The acceptable limit for first quality fabric is usually estimated by mutual agreement between the buyer and seller.
To determine defects, most systems suggest a 3 feet viewing distance.
There is no standard sampling plans used in the industries for the inspection of fabric.
For inspecting fabrics or garments 4-Point system, 2.5-Point system, 6-Point system, 10-Point inspection system, Graniteville “78” system, etc. are used.
Steps in garments inspection:
In garments industry, the desired or expected quality parameters are controlled by inspection. This inspection can be done in three steps:
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