Introduction

"Quality" is defined as that combination of design and properties of materials of a product which are
needed for the intended end use and level of the market in which it is sold.
"Requisite Quality" is defined as the design and composition of a product, which has been thoroughly
proved by adequate development work, in order to establish its reliability under the conditions to which it
will be subjected in use and to avoid producing too high a grade of product for the intended market.

Quality Assurance
"The establishment and maintenance of ALL activities and functions concerned with the attainment of
requisite quality"

Quality Control
"The systems required for programming and co-ordinating the efforts of the various groups in an
organisation to maintain the requisite quality" As such Quality Control is seen as the agent of Quality
Assurance or Total Quality Control

Quality for textile and apparel:

Quality may be defined as the level of acceptance of goods or services.

For the textile and apparel industry, product quality is calculated in terms of quality and standard of fibers,
yarns, fabric construction, colour fastness, designs and the final finished garments. Quality control in
terms of garment manufacturing, pre-sales and post-sales service, delivery, pricing, etc are essential for
any garment manufacturer, trader or exporter.

Certain quality related problems, often seen in garment manufacturing like sewing, colour, sizing, or
garment defects should never be over looked.

These defects are discussed below -

Sewing defects :
Open seams, wrong stitching techniques, non- matching threads, missing stitches, improper creasing of
the garment, improper thread tension etc. are some of the sewing defects which can affect the garment
quality adversely.

Colour defects :
Variation of colour between the sample and the final garment, wrong colour combinations and
mismatching dyes should always be avoided.

Sizing defects:
Wrong gradation of sizes, difference in measurement of various parts of a garment like sleeves of XL size
for body of L size garment can deteriorate the garments beyond repair.

Garment defects
Broken or defective buttons, snaps, stitches, different shades within the same garment, dropped stitches,
exposed notches, fabric defects, holes, faulty zippers, loose or hanging sewing threads, misaligned
buttons and holes, missing buttons, needle cuts, pulled or loose yarn, stains, unfinished buttonhole, short
zippers, inappropriate trimmings etc. all can lead to the end of a brand name even before its
establishment.
 Some of main fabric properties that are taken into consideration for garment manufacturing for
export basis:

• Overall look of the garment.

• Right formation of the garment.
Feel and fall of the garment.
• Physical properties.
• Colour fastness of the garment.
• Finishing properties.
• Presentation of the final produced garment.

GARMENT INSPECTION

The inspection that is done for controlling the quality of garments is mainly meant to examine in bare
eyes. Checking of the fabrics of garments, sewing, button, thread, zipper, measurements of garments etc.
with the standard process is called the inspection. In each section of a garments industry, there are
arrangements for inspection. The main purpose of inspection is to identify the faults at the earliest
possible steps for production of garments and earlier the defects will be detected lesser will be the
wastage of time and money.

For conducting successful and meaningful inspection, steps can be adopted as per the ‘inspection loop’
described below. First, identify defects through inspection, inform about the defects to the concerned
person, identify the causes of defects, and rectify them.

GARMENT INSPECTION STEPS:

In garments Industry, inspection is generally conducted in three steps:

 Raw material
 In Process and
 Final

Raw material Inspection

In garments industry, raw material means mainly the fabrics, but sewing thread, zipper or
chain, interlining etc. also may be considered under the items of raw material.

Fabric Inspection
Just the moment for production of garments, fabric is required, which is the main element of garment.
Local or foreign that means whatever be the country of origin of fabrics, the quality of fabrics should be
well judged before purchasing of fabrics, because, if not so, both time and money may be wasted.
Specially, due to the low grade fabrics, burden of irreparable loss may have to be borne. Some factories
 do inspection after reaching the fabrics at their factories. But it is wise to do the fabric inspection at sellers
factory.

Sewing thread Inspection

Frequent breaking of sewing threads during sewing of garment indirectly influences on the production of
garments and its quality. It is necessary to mention here that in running condition of machine, the sewing
threads run through the needles at a speed of 140 to 165 KM per hour. The strength of thread may be
decreased from 2 to 32% due to the friction of threads with the various parts of machines and fabrics. For
this reason, before purchasing of sewing threads, the below mentioned characteristics of threads should
be verified –
 Ticket number
 Sewability
Chain (Zipper)
Chain or zipper is a special part of a garment, which if defective, the garment may be unfit for wearing.
Need to be ensured beforehand about the below issues so that the defects related to the zippers should
not arise.
 Dimension
 Stops
 Uniform color
 Puckering
 Slider
 Lock
 Arrow mark

In-Process Inspection

The process of inspection of the various parts of a garment before joining is called in-process inspection.
In garments industry, inspection is done in each section starting from spreading to finishing. The main
objective of in-process inspection is to identify the defects in the primary stages of various sections and to
adopt the necessary steps to rectify the defects. Because, the defects detected as earlier, its rectification
cost will be lesser. In order to control the quality of garments, the measures that can be adopted in the
steps of garments making, are discussed below in steps:

Marker making
If mistakes or defects occurred in marker making, the quality of garments will be lower. So all the matters
involved in marker making, should be inspected properly. As for example, need to examine whether the
labeling or code numbers have been placed properly in each of the patterns drawn in the marker.

Fabric Spreading
The defects during spreading of the fabrics, for which the quality of garments may be lower, should be
taken care at the time of spreading of fabrics. As for example, during spreading, fabric should be spread
as per the length and width of the marker and the edges of fabric both in the directions of length and in
width have to be aligned. Otherwise, the wastage of the fabric will increase.

Fabric Cutting
The most important precondition for making of high quality garments is the cutting of fabrics in high
quality. So the factors related to fabric cutting, should be inspected carefully. As for example, whether the
dimension of the patterns and the cut fabrics are exactly same or not should be inspected.

Fabric Sewing
In garments manufacturing industries, the most specious and the most important section is the fabric
sewing section. The jobs of each sewing machine operator of this section should be regularly inspected,
and specially, it is to be specified that up to what level of faults in each job is acceptable, and always
arrangements should be made for identifying the defects through inspection, and to adopt measures for
rectifications, and to control the defects.

Pressing or Finishing
The main objective of pressing or finishing is to make arrangement so that garments look good, because,
in most of the cases a customer takes the buying decision of the garment based on whether it looks good
or not though buying of a garment also depends on its price, quality, standard etc. For this reason,
pressing or finishing is very much important.

Final Inspection

In the final inspection, mainly the whole inspection of garments is done, because, before this stage, there
is no opportunity to do inspection of a complete garment. This final inspection is very much important from
the buyers end. In this final inspection, mainly the size of the garments, form fitting, and the defects of the
garments are inspected.