Many of our customers are surprised by how many different types of problems Darn It can solve once they get to know us better. Every week one of our customers says to us “Wow, Darn It Does That?!!” So we decided to inform our customers and potential customers through a multipart series that talks to many tasks that Darn It can do to help you solve your quality issues and get your product to market quickly.
Part 1. Quality Inspection
Many retailers staff their distribution centers modestly to keep costs down as inbound and outbound of their product can fluctuate throughout the year. What happens when the quality control team in the distribution center flags a problem with one of the inbound shipments where a 100% quality inspection and sort is needed to be done asap? These goods are going live on the retailer’s website and are needed on the shelves for picking.
In some cases, the warehouse manager will pull people from many different departments including office staff to inspect the shipment. This can cause total chaos as many of these staff members are not properly trained and more importantly, they neglect their other duties while inspecting.
Another option is to outsource these last-minute operations and use a re-work or refurbishment facility like Darn It. Why put your day-to-day operation in jeopardy when the team at Darn It can help save the day?
Quality inspections can range in the type of inspection needed:
- In some cases, it’s a sort that can be completed without opening the poly-bags. Examples of this type of inspections are – checking tickets or country of origin labels, sorting shade lots and checking multi-pack assortments color combinations through the poly-bag.
- Other inspections include checking for manufacturing defects. They can range from stains/soiling, fabric pulls, fabric holes, open seams, missing or loose buttons, panel shading, poor trimming…the number of issues that could go wrong during manufacturing are endless. And many times, where there is one issue found on the inbound inspection, more issues are uncovered during the 100% inspection.
- Operations inspections include pulling on seams to ensure strength, operating zippers, buttons or other hardware to ensure that the customer will not have an issue during the life of the garment.
- Measurement specification inspections are conducted when an issue with the units does not meet the specifications of the garment. They can range from 1 point that is identified as the issue (example – the inseam of the pants are too short…they may have been mis-labeled units) to checking all measurements of the garment because the panel assembly was improperly controlled at the factory or fabric selection was not correct for the garment type
- AQL inspections are conducted upon receipt of an order. An inspection table is used to pull a statistical number of units to check. There is a pass/fail margin used to assess the inspection lot (sometimes the shipment or each PO). Some of our warehouse customers appreciate this service in-house so that they have assurance that their product meets their quality standards upon receipt
- Destructive inspections are usually performed to uncover a safety issue. An example is removing the inner sole of a shoe to see how the factory fastened a heel onto the shoe. If the factory used the wrong hardware, the heel could fail resulting in customer injury
Whether it is an inspection of 300 or 30,000 units, our staff of over 60 inspectors can get it done quickly. We understand that your product is not worth anything as a damaged unit. Once the inspection is completed, our Apparel Inspection team will box the good items separately from the bad ones and get a full manifest of the shipment back to you by carton to make it simple for your receiving team to bring it back into your facility. You shouldn’t have to touch it again.
Let Darn It help take the pressure off you and your staff. Call us first with any quality inspection issues that pop up and we can get started immediately.
“Your Problem Is Our Business”
