How to Make Garment Inspection Report - Simple Method and Advanced Method

If you are already working in garment production, you might know that garments are inspected at various stages in the manufacturing process. Common Inspection stages practised by garment factories have been explained in this article.

In this post, I will show you how to make quality inspection reports for the manufacturing process. Here the term 'Garment Inspection' means all kind of garment checking other than final shipment inspection.

The simple steps involved in making quality inspection reports
  1. Design quality inspection format(s)
  2. Record quality inspection data while inspecting goods - online or off the line
  3. Analyse data and make a summary of the reports

Do you use minimum formats to record inspection findings? I hope you do. Otherwise, you were not reading this post.

Let come to the main topic. How to make garment checking report (inspection report)? In this post, I have explained simple to the complex form of data collection and report making. Use one that matches your requirement and follow the procedure.

Making an Inspection Report:

First, define what is the purpose of making a quality inspection report in your factory. Then according to the information required you have to design inspection format. For your information, common quality measures are Percentage Defective of garments in a production lot, DHU etc.

Your objective of garment inspection might be one of the followings. Method of making inspection report explained accordingly.

1. Do you like to know how much Defective Garments are made in the last production day? Use the simple method -1.

Simple Method - 1:

To measure percentage defectives of a garment lot you need to follow the below procedure. A sample format is shown in the following for data collection.
  • Employ one quality checker at the end of the line (at the end of the process). Checker needs to check 100% garments coming out from the line.
  • Record total number of pieces checked by the checker during the day
  • Record total defective (including rejected garments) garments kept aside while checking garments
  • Calculate percentage defective garment in the production lot.
Defective Percentage = (Number of defective garments X 100/Number of total garments checked)

Figure-1: Quality Inspection data collection format


2. Do you need to know how many Defects are produced by your tailors? Follow the simple method -2

Simple Method -2. 

To measure total number of defects or Defect per Hundred  Units (DHU) of a garment lot you need to follow below procedure. A sample format is shown in the following for data collection.
  • Make the format as Figure-2 for data capturing
  • Record numbers of defects found in checked garments. You can extend this format for recording number of defects for defect wise. 
  • Sum up total pieces checked and total defects found in those checked pieces
  • Calculate Defects per Hundred Units (DHU)
DHU = (Totals defects found X 100)/Total pieces checked
Figure-2: Quality Inspection data collection format

Also Read: How to Measure DHU?


3. Do you like to make measurement checking report? Follow simple method-3.


Simple Method -3: Measurement Checking

Garment measurement checking is required to ensure the fit of the garment. For measurement checking use following procedure.
  • Design format with a list of measurement points, size-wise measurement specified by buyer/designer, allowance (+/-)
  • Record actual measurements while you are checking garment measurements
  • Verify actual measurement with buyer specified measurements and tolerance level. 
  • Comment on the report
Also Read: Standard measuring positions for apparel products and Measurement inspection Procedure

4. Want to know what are the major defects in a garment lot? And like to find DHU and Defective percentage data in a single format? Follow the advanced method.

Advanced Method


Read the following procedure and implement it.
  • Design detailed data collection format - it should include defects categories, total defects, total defective pieces, accepted pieces etc. 
  • While checking garments (stitching division) record defects found under defect categories, record total defective pieces found.
  • Sum up number of defects in each defect categories and calculate total defects.
  • Calculate DHU and Percentage Defective of the inspected garment lot
  • List down defects in descending order of number of defect found. You can also make bar graph (Pareto chart) with total defects in each categories. See following figure-3 for example of Pareto chart.

Fig-3: Pareto of Sewing defects


Conclusion:

The actual fact - many garment manufacturers fill complex inspection format. But they don't make any inspection report and don't draw any conclusion from the collected data. It is also important to summarize the report, otherwise, no action and decision can be taken at post-inspection.

There is a big difference between recording on a blank inspection form and making a quality report. A filled format says nothing if collected data is not summarized, comments and action plan are written at the end of the inspection report. Mention clearly what action to be taken by the production team and quality controller based on the product quality report summary. Like, if it is in-process checking mention what errors are frequently happening. If it is final inspection or audit mention whether an audit is Passed/Failed/ need to be rechecked.

You can use inspection report data in many ways. You can go deeper and dig down more about defects generation with the facts that you have collected in the above inspection reports. You can even track the reasons for occurring particular defect.

To find the root cause of defect generation use problem-solving tools like

Prasanta Sarkar

Prasanta Sarkar is a textile engineer and a postgraduate in fashion technology from NIFT, New Delhi, India. He has authored 6 books in the field of garment manufacturing technology, garment business setup, and industrial engineering. He loves writing how-to guide articles in the fashion industry niche. He has been working in the apparel manufacturing industry since 2006. He has visited garment factories in many countries and implemented process improvement projects in numerous garment units in different continents including Asia, Europe, and South Africa. He is the founder and editor of the Online Clothing Study Blog. He lives in India. linkedin

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