Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for Quality Management for Garment Manufacturers

Earlier apparel buyers don’t bother how a factory makes quality? How many extra pieces they have processed to achieve all the good pieces to hand over to the buyer?

On the other side, factories don’t think about how much money they are losing through repair work and garment rejection. It has been assessed unlike last decade nowadays manufacturers become quality conscious and looking for solutions to quality-related problems and many of them demand that they have a good quality system in place and they ship quality garments to the buyer.

Even during the vendor selection process, garment brands look for the factories’ quality management systems and quality performance history in making apparel items. But the question is do the factory measure the quality performance?

It is not just what you feel about your product quality is, there must be certain performance measuring criteria.

I would suggest factories track their performance on the following quality control KPIs. Once they have KPI data and quality analysis of different processes, they can improve their quality performance continuous basis after taking measurable action.

1. Customer complaints 

In the apparel industry, professionals always talk about product quality, defects , and quality systems. To the apparel buyer, ‘quality’ means – the end product quality of what they are receiving from the factory, and quality should be as per their requirement. No more, no less.Earlier apparel buyers don’t bother how a factory makes quality? How many extra pieces they have processed to achieve all the good pieces to hand over to the buyer?On the other side, factories don’t think about how much money they are losing through repair work and garment rejection. It has been assessed unlike last decade nowadays manufacturers become quality conscious and looking for solutions to quality-related problems and many of them demand that they have a good quality system in place and they ship quality garments to the buyer.Even during the vendor selection process, garment brands look for the factories’ quality management systems and quality performance history in making apparel items. But the question is do the factory measure the quality performance?It is not just what you feel about your product quality is, there must be certain performance measuring criteria.I would suggest factories track their performance on the following quality control KPIs. Once they have KPI data and quality analysis of different processes, they can improve their quality performance continuous basis after taking measurable action.

When buyers received something wrong against the contract with suppliers in terms of product quality they claim for the garment damages. It is huge money to pay back to the buyer. Even factories may lose a business relationship with those buyers due to poor product quality. So customer complaint is considered as most important KPI.

2. AQL levels 

3. Percentage Defective level 

It means when garments are inspected what AQL level is being followed as pass or fail criteria. Though it may vary from product to product, it gives a clear idea about the factory’s quality performance. Lower the AQL you follow, better is the quality performance.

This term is also known as Defect %. It is a measure of total defective garments found and total garments inspected in percentage. It can be calculated batch-wise or on the basis of the complete order. Generally factory measure Defect percentage on the daily and hourly basis of the batch. Lesser the defect% better is the quality performance.

4. Defects per Hundred Units (DHU) 

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5. Rework Costs 

Factories measure Defect% but don’t track the total number of defects found in inspected pieces. Tracking of DHU is important because of your rework time and workforce required for repairing defects directly linked with the DHU number. Lesser the DHU. better is the quality performance.Also Read: KPI data and quality analysis of different processes

Each rework is a cost to the company. The rework costs vary according to the process and types of rework. It consumes extra time and increases factory overhead. Process-wise and product-wise rework costs can be tracked to measure it. Lower the Rework cost better is quality performance.

6. Right First Time (RFT) Quality

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Related post: KPIs for Garment Manufacturers

For garment manufacturers, RFT quality is an ideal situation. It means whatever activities you do to make the garment, the quality of the garment should be correct at the first time. Data can be captured for RFT at each process and it is expressed in percentage.I have written an ebook on Garment Makers KPI that includes all these KPIs with examples and detailed calculation methods of quality management KPIs.