Quality

Controls in
Apparel
Industry
SEHRISH NAVEED
What is Quality?
Quality is the degree of excellence in products or services. It is important to remember that quality is
relative, and what one person believes is good quality, may appear as poor quality to someone else.

The aim is for the customer to be satisfied, either it is you or your end consumer. Quality is important
in any aspect of your business.

Customers expect value for money.

It is easy to say that you will have a high-quality brand. But what does it actually mean? You need to
think through and describe what quality is to you and your apparel brand. Set standards.
What is Quality?
The quality standards of a product are often related to the price point of it. Every part of the product
development should be the best possible for the cost you pay.

Even though you will set standards, quality is something that may change from time to time. 

There will be new suppliers, new manufacturers, new workers, etc. Below are points to know about
where things can go wrong.
What is Quality?
There is no such thing as a smooth production run. You need to know where problems could arise, to
be able to prevent them.

Once a production run is finished and shipped, it’s too late to do something about it. If the retailers
receive faulty goods, it could ruin your reputation and brand.

That retailer might not want to do business with you in the future.

 
Quality control

Quality control means ensuring, at a minimum cost, that the quality requirements of a product are
being achieved at every stage of manufacturing, from raw materials to boxed stock.
Quality control 
Quality control is practiced right from the initial stage of sourcing materials to the stage of
the final finished garment. Quality involves fabric, accessories, construction, colorfastness,
design, and the finished garment.

Typically, a number of products are picked at random and the quality requirements are

checked.
How to control the quality
Typically, a number of products are picked at random and the quality requirements are checked. To
control the quality a number of pre-determined parameters are checked. Below follows a range
standard parameter and defects that are examined before, during, and after the production.

No matter how many pieces you produce, 200 or 5000, you should together with the manufacturer
decide how to go about the quality control. Either totally by checking every single product or by spot-
checking.

 
How to control the quality
Use a Quality Control Specification Sheet. It should include the following:
•Quality control before production – Materials

•Quality control during production – Product making

•Final quality control –Packing & assortments, Fabric defects, Workmanship defects, General

defects, Measurement deviations
How to Ensure Quality?
To ensure quality we needs to do a number of things:
•Recognize who the customer is

•Build process that anticipate and prevent defects.

•Make a plan to achieve desired quality level.

•Setup ways to measure our progress.

•Work as a team to achieve goal.

CONCEPT OF CUSTOMERS
A customer is the entity receiving a service or product from our work.

This entity can be the next process in line, it can be the boss, it can be a fellow worker.

Lets illustrate this with an example of short production line.

CONCEPT OF CUSTOMERS

Receiving Cutting Sewing Washing Inspection Finishing

CONCEPT OF CUSTOMERS
Cutting Customer is Sewing , Sewing is washing , inspect and Finishing.

A very true American Slogan is the most system behave the following way. “Garbage In Garbage Out”.
In other means you need to have good quality materials coming in to have good quality goods at the
end.

If you apply this to every process in the system you get the foundation of TQC ie Total Quality
Controls
CONCEPT OF CUSTOMERS
Every process is a system in it self where in coming quality will determine the outgoing quality.

Quality needs to be built into every process of the system to ensure results at the end.

We could waste our resources in trying to guarantee quality by inspecting finished goods and
eliminating those that seems to be defective .

Actually we have to spend our energy preventing the defects and guaranteeing quality at every step of
the process through effective planning and controls.
 CONCEPT OF CUSTOMERS
To prevent is to ACT in anticipation of an event ,,, to keep happening ; make impossible by prior
action” we will succeed with well planed action.

1. Measurement are a vital part of any quality improvement program. Anything that is not measure
does not improve. We need to establish these standard measures and measures the progress
periodically.

2. Team work is also an essential element for the success of the program. Remember “Not
one of us is better than ALL of us”. The whole efforts need to have a direction that a team leader
will provide.
 Quality Executives Job
There are two separate areas of dealing with quality that an executive becomes involved in:

1. Preventing Repairs

2. Handling Repairs

Preventing Repairs:

working with operators to prevent repair (correct at the source)

Handling Repairs

Getting repairs corrected and work back into the production flow.
 What is the best strategy?
1. Which one is the most important?

2. Which one is the most effective way to control quality?

3. Which one should be the executive primary aim?

4. Which one takes up the majority of your time?

5. Answer honestly.
The Cost of Quality

Understanding the cost of quality in the apparel industry is a quality assurance method with
many benefits.

The cost of quality is the money a factory spends on garment and material inspections,
quality personnel training and the cost of labor for repair work to ensure that products meet
acceptable quality standards.

In other words, it’s the total sum of expenses incurred by a fashion brand to prevent non-
conformance from happening.
The Cost of Quality
The COQ can be divided into the Cost of Good Quality, which branches into Prevention and
Appraisal Costs.

Cost of Poor Quality (COPQ) which branches into Internal and External Failure Costs.
Cost of Quality in Garment Manufacturing

It is understood that quality control functions are non-value adding to the product, but they
are essential to honor our commitment towards customers. Hence, we have a quality system in
our organization.

The cost of quality is collective spending’s in order to satisfy your customers or to achieve the
required attributes.
Cost of Quality in Garment Manufacturing

The cost of quality can be divided into two categories, the cost of good quality and the cost of
poor quality.

You can also relate the cost of quality with your approach of quality. The cost of good quality is
something which you spent in proactive measures whereas the cost of poor quality is
something which you spent on reactive measures.
Cost of Quality in Garment Manufacturing
Cost of Quality Elements 

1. Appraisal Cost: 
•These costs are associated with the suppliers’ and customers’ evaluation of purchased
materials, processes, products, and services to ensure that they conform to specifications.
Audit Cost- It is related to the working of the quality system and its audit.

•Verification Cost- It is related with verification of incoming material, the system set up
verification
•Calibration Cost

•Testing Cost
2. Prevention Cost: 

•These costs incurred during preventing defects. These are planned and proactive approaches
and are done before the actual failure of products or services.
Quality Planning- Planning for a specific order, planning for quality checkpoints

•Quality Assurance- Creation of Quality System

•Quality Training- Training for a new style of system

•Quality Systems- Investment in Quality related software or information system

3. Internal Failure Cost: 

•This is the cost that incurs before the product is dispatched to the buyer.
Rework Cost

•Scrap/Reject Cost

•Re-Inspection Cost

•Wastages (storage/ movement/ over processing etc.)

•Failure Analysis Cost (FMEA/RCA)

4. External Failure Cost: 

•This is the cost that incurs when defects are discovered by customers or buyers. This indicates
the failure of the quality system of the factory. Various heads under this are:
Repair Cost

•Claims from Buyer

•Returns

•Loss of Reputations
Calculation Method of Cost of Quality

Cost of Quality (COQ) = Cost of Poor Quality (COPQ) + Cost of Good Quality (COGQ) 
Cost of Quality (COQ) = IFC + EFC +AC +PC 
Calculation Method of Cost of Quality

I will show you the cost of quality calculation method used in a garment factory. When calculating the Cost of
Quality, we have considered the following.

Product                 : Trouser

Order Quantity    : 50000
SAM                       : 35min
CPM (SAM x Cost/Minute of Factory i.e. 3.5): 122.5
Cost/Piece (Fabric cost (Rs.500)+ CMP)    : 622.5
Order Value        : 311,25,000

Other variables used in calculating the cost of quality are mentioned in the remark column. 
Calculation Method of Cost of Quality
Cost of Quality in Garment Manufacturing

This is a sample example to calculate the cost of poor quality. Many more details can be added
based on your organization structure, order quantity and terms and conditions from the buyer.

Similarly, the cost of good quality can be also calculated, thus making it feasible to calculate
the total cost of quality in an organization. Organizations should strive to reduce the cost of
quality particularly the cost of poor quality (COPQ).
How to Control Quality (General
points)
oHave the proper approach towards operators.

oApproach operator with defective garments.

oAsk operator kindly to stop her / his work and pay you attention.

oExplain defect found and ask if he / she understand why garment is defective.

oMake sure operator understand why it is defective.

oTry to find out why the defect was created or why it was not detected at work station.

oRestate the company's commitment to quality.

 How to Control Quality (General
points)
oAsk operator to inspect the current bundle for defective parts and then repair all parts that are out of
tolerance including the one found by the inspector. This should be done immediately.
oStay and observe sewing method.

oBe sure you understand what constitutes good and poor quality.

oBe consistent in your decision towards quality.

oBe sure to check operators work daily. The amount of defects found should govern the amount of
inspections performed. Vary inspection times and inspection sequence. Check into middle of the
bundle . Don't only look at only the top garments.
How to Control Quality (General
points)
oTrain operators to sew with good quality from the beginning.

oKnow quality specification and tolerances.

oComment on both bad and good quality. We all have the tendency to be silent during good times and
vocal during the bad.
oAlways use a checklist don't rely on memory of specs.

oDon't rely on inspector's to tell you the quality level of your operators. You find out yourselves.

oNever give the impression that you think work is ok but the inspector will not pass it. If you do have
this problem resolve it with plant manager away from the operators.
Garments Management Quality Organogram

◦ Garment quality control organogram is a diagram that shows the structure of a garments factory
quality department ,and how the various positions are related to each other, frequently used to show
the chain of command and relative ranking of various positions in this department.

◦ Include information such as the job titles, names, areas of responsibility for the employees and
sorted out from top to bottom position.

Here an organogram is given in below.

Garment Quality Management Organogram