Things to Consider When Conducting a Quality Inspection

Let’s face it as a business you don’t want to get large orders only to deliver low-quality products, and customers definitely don’t want to receive anything less than promised and paid for.

Quality inspection and quality control are the two most important aspects of your business in manufacturing products, quality control is done to meet the product quality to the standard and quality inspection is conducted to find the defects in the product’s quality.

Both of these are done to prevent delivering bad quality products to your valuable customers which can only lead to bad branding for your business.

But if your team is currently in training or fairly new to this concept, there are few things you should know and avoid,

So here are few things to keep in mind during the quality inspection of your products:

1.  Inspect from your buyer’s point:

Checking products with standards given is normally what your QC does, but putting them in buyers’ shoes can help you understand a whole lot about the product’s quality.

As a buyer don’t really think in terms of hard work, manpower and cost put in a product they simply see and use what is in front of them.

So having an unbiased perspective can improve your product’s delivery and ensure you are living up to your customer’s expectations.

This brings better customer value and better loyalty to your business.

2.  Check the product with specs:

Ensure that your team has equipped designs and specifications that can clearly define a finished product.

This can help them differentiate between the expected product and a defective product.

Normally your team’s QC checklist should contain:

●    Product’s weight and dimension

●    Expected colour

●    Design, material, and construction

●    Final appearance

●    Branding and labelling

Having an expected sample of a product and a checklist can help make things easy for your team and quickly identify a low-quality product.

3.  Benefits of quality control:

It is important to know what to expect after a good quality control inspection, here is how quality control can benefit your business:

●    Ensuring your customers get the best quality products.

●    If your company produces medication, food, or consumable items it can help you to eliminate products that can make your customer sick.

●    Eliminate cost by stopping the manufacturing of a defective product during the process.

●    Inspire your employees to create better quality products.

●    Make your team more accountable during manufacturing.

Quality control and inspection’s main goal are to give your customer the best quality of products and avoid returns etc.

4.  Quality control vs Quality Inspection:

Make sure to educate your quality control team to learn the difference between both of these concepts.

Quality inspection is part of quality control, during the manufacturing of products inspectors inspect the quality of your product by testing and ensuring it meets industry standards.

Quality control is prioritized to ensure that quality inspection is done at less cost.

Quality control uses methods like lab testing and the X bar chart method.

Quality inspection methods include Fixed inspection, Final inspection, Floor patrolling inspection, and key point inspection.

The most common type of inspection you might have seen is floor patrolling, quality inspectors patrol on floors where products are being manufactured and observe closely to maintain the protocol and ensure the products are as expected.

So before sending your team to do an inspection make sure to use a method that best describes your production functions as to each product it would be different.

5.  Reporting quality defects:

When it comes to identifying and reporting a product defect it should be done in an organized and informative manner.

So your team can easily debrief the conclusion and help identify the most common places of weak designs.

Classify product defects as “major”, “critical” and “minor” this helps to get insightful data and avoid any misreporting or lack of proper report during the inspection,

As it has its own consequences. 

6.  Plan multiple scenarios:

Other than the standard practices done by a quality inspector like tensile testing, fatigue testing, or impact testing try more creative testing procedures if possible and approved.

The main objectives of testing are to ensure that product can be used by the end consumer on day to day basis and therefore ensuring the reliability and strength of the product.

Let that be their household members or younger members like kids who accidentally push the product, so come up with ways in how normal scenarios would be like in the day of your buyer and test according to that.

This is an additional form of testing that is based on real-world applications so it is one to try.

Ensuring your customer gets the best possible product can help your business in more than one way, as it can help with establishing a solid brand resemblance, customer loyalty, and lastly prevent negative brand image.

As people sometimes can’t help but see the flaws first.

Thank you for reading!