Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Imagine you’re a customer at a clothing store where you’re a regular shopper. You
buy a size medium jacket, expecting it to fit like a similar medium-sized jacket
you’ve bought there before. But you get home and the jacket doesn’t fit as you
expect. You’ll likely return the jacket, right? You may even hesitate to shop there
again in the future.
Now imagine you’re the importer of this jacket and facing numerous product
returns. You realize you didn’t set clear enough tolerances for dimensions of the
jacket in your inspection criteria, resulting in jackets that don’t match your sizing
requirements. Now you’re left with a substandard shipment of goods and an
ongoing quality crisis because of one missing detail during garment inspection.
Third-party inspection has become a key part of many garments importers’ supply
chains (related: How Betabrand Limits Quality Defects to Delight Their Garment Buyers
[Case Study]). With an inspection team on the ground, you can see exactly how your
products look without needing to personally visit the factory to check. But you need
to clearly specify your requirements and steps for inspection to get a truly accurate
report of your order’s quality. Let’s look at the five steps to garment inspection you
should always ensure your QC staff follow.
beginning production so that you can agree on a reasonable tolerance for your
products.
Pull test: Pull at the accessory with a pull gauge for 10 seconds to confirm it
stays securely attached to the garment.
Fatigue test: Use the accessory as intended for 50 cycles (e.g. button and
unbutton 50 times) in quick succession and confirm it’s still functional and the
garment is undamaged after testing.
Stretch test: Stretch elastic bands and straps for proper elasticity and check
for any breakage in elastic fibers or stitching.
QC professionals generally conduct pull tests and fatigue tests on two pieces of
each style of garment. It’s normally unnecessary to carry out these tests on every
piece in the sample during inspection because the processes used in attaching
accessories to garments tend to be consistent throughout a shipment. But the
quality of elastic materials used in production of some garments can vary between
pieces. So inspectors usually perform a stretch test on the full sample size when
relevant.
An untrimmed thread
Shading variance between different pieces of the same style or different
parts of the same piece
A loose needle left in the garment
Most garment importers would agree that a loose needle left in a garment is a
more severe issue than an untrimmed thread because of the hazard it poses to the
consumer. But the severity of other defects might vary based on your intended
market and sale price. Setting defect classifications before quality control
inspection for garments will help ensure that QC staff consider all defects in
accordance to your specific quality standards.
CONCLUSION
Inspections are commonplace among most product categories. But they’re
especially important when manufacturing garments, as manual production
processes often result in products that are more prone to human errors and
mistakes. These steps to garment inspection convey the essential basics of quality
control inspection for garments. You may find your quality requirements dictate the
need for additional steps, such as other product testing.
Regardless of your particular requirements, it’s vital that you, your supplier and
your inspection team have a clear understanding of what’s expected. All relevant
parties need ready access to current specifications, inspection criteria and any
other quality documents. Be sure to continually update your product specifications
after inspection to reflect any unforeseen quality issues found during inspection
and other changes.