QUALITY CONTROL FOR THE APPAREL INDUSTRY – (DOMESTIC / EXPORT)
R.S. Balakumar
Associate Professor
Dept of Fashion Design & Arts
Hindustan University, Chennai, India
Email: rsbalakumar1953@gmail.com
QUALITY CONTROL REQUIREMENTS
The Quality Control Requirements are based on the principle of PDCA Cycle.
Fig: PDCA Cycle
Understanding the customers quality requirements
Organizing & training quality control department
Ensuring proper flow of quality requirements to the QC department
Ensuring proper flow of quality requirements to the production Department
Establishing quality plans, parameters, inspection systems, frequency, sampling techniques, etc.
Inspection, testing, measurements as per plan
Record deviations
Feedback to production Department
Plan for further improvement
Fig: Quality Control System for the Apparel Industry
ESTABLISHING THE QUALITY REQUIREMENTS
The first step for quality control is to understand, establish and accept the customers quality requirements. This involves the following steps.
Getting customers specifications regarding the quality
Referring our past performance
Discussing with the Quality Control Department
Discussing with the production Department
Giving the Feed Back to the customers
Receiving the revised quality requirements from the customers
Accepting the quality parameters
FLOW CHART FOR SPECIFICATIONS AND QUALITY PARAMETERS
Fig: Flow chart of quality control for the apparel industry
VARIOUS LEVELS OF INSPECTION & QUALITY CONTROL The following levels are discussed at the Garment Making Department assuming that this department is receiving the ready to cut dyed & finished fabrics from the Dyeing & Finishing Department.
PRE-PRODUCTION INSPECTION
The following parameters & defects are checked prior to cutting.
BEFORE PACKING INSPECTION
Many of the important parameters of Pre-productions, during productions & final inspection parameters. This is to ensure that wrong or major defective garments are not packed.
E. MEASUREMENT DEVIATIONS
Compare the garment measurements against the Customers Measurement Charts. Following are the some of the important garments measurement aspects to be considered.
Garment length
Body width
Shoulder length
Arm hole
Arm opening
Sleeve length
Placket length
Placket width
Neck width
Neck opening
Hemming width
Rib or Collar width
AQL (ACCEPTABLE QUALITY LEVEL)
A certain proportion of defective will always occur in any manufacturing process. If the percentage does not exceed a certain limit, it will be economical to allow the defective to go through instead of screening the entire lot. This limit is called the “Acceptable Quality Level” (AQL)
Considering the practical & economic aspects, Sampling Techniques are adopted to accept or reject a Lot on the basis of the Samples drawn at Random from the lot. It has been found and accepted that a scientifically designed sampling & inspection plan protects a Manufacturer as well as the Buyer economically.
American Military standards known as MIL-STD-105A to 105E is accepted worldwide for sampling sizes. It has the following sample size levels. Normally for Garment Industry 105D or 105E are followed.
ECOLOGICAL PARAMETERS
Now all the Customers are asking for Ecological Parameters. Now European Buyers are stressing this. Following are main Ecological Parameters to be considered.
Other specific parameters as required by the customers
Conclusion:
Quality control system in apparel industry plays an vital role and will build up good relationship between buyer and manufacturer. Now a day’s customers prefer to buy the goods to satisfy their requirements. To build up good relationship between manufacturer and customer, quality control system is always helping as a wonderful bridge between them.
Founder & Editor of Textile Learner. He is a Textile Consultant, Blogger & Entrepreneur. He is working as a textile consultant in several local and international companies. He is also a contributor of Wikipedia.
