Quality Control and Quality Assurance in the Apparel Industry: An Introduction to Implementation
Delivering consistent quality is critical for a brand’s success in the apparel industry. Still, many brands don’t know where to start with quality assurance and control and, thus, struggle to balance speed, compliance, and customer expectations.
This article reviews quality control (QC) and quality assurance (QA) in the apparel industry. We’ll explain key challenges fashion brands face today and how a strong quality management program can be designed to address them.
Why Quality Matters in the Digital-First Apparel Industry
It’s critical for digital brands to meet or exceed customer expectations on the first sale. When purchasing online, customers are more uncertain about the fit and quality of an item. Delivering lower quality products than expected most often means the loss of a potential lifetime customer.
Meeting customer expectations of online shoppers can be tough, but quality management processes help ensure you deliver on your promise to your customers. Building quality control throughout the production cycle has a multitude of benefits:
Brand reputation: High-quality garments reduce or eliminate negative feedback and distinguish your brand in a crowded market.
Customer retention: Quality apparel strengthens customer loyalty and boosts repeat purchases while reducing complaints, returns, and negative reviews.
Cost-effectiveness: Adequate quality management prevents defects early in production while minimizing waste and the need for costly rework.
Regulatory compliance: Quality control processes help brands meet industry standards, comply with regulatory requirements, and avoid penalties or market bans.
Key Quality Challenges Digital-Native Fashion Brands Face
Emerging fashion brands face various obstacles as they scale their business while balancing customer trust, sustainability efforts, and regulatory requirements. The most common quality challenges include:
Variability in product quality across multiple production runs
A lack of transparency in production processes and supply chains
Balancing speed and quality
Lack of in-house quality management expertise
Managing defects and reducing returns
Implementing strong quality management systems helps you face these challenges head-on – and reap the benefits as your reputation strengthens. A key first step in building a robust quality management system is recognizing the difference between quality assurance and quality control.
What’s the Difference between Quality Assurance and Quality Control?
Although the terms are often used interchangeably, these complementary processes play different roles in the garment manufacturing industry.
Quality Assurance
Quality assurance is a proactiveprocess that ensures quality is built into every stage of production and distribution. Quality assurance is process-oriented. Its primary targets are establishing systems, procedures, and standards to reach quality targets, achieve continuous improvement, and anticipate problems before they appear.
QA activities include process planning, staff training, and compliance checks to ensure consistent adherence to quality standards.
Quality Control
Quality control is a reactive process integrated as a safety net into quality assurance. It is a targeted ‘check-up’ or assessment of finished products to identify and correct defects. QC typically involves garment inspection, lab testing, and defect reporting.
Quality control is product-oriented. Its primary targets are to verify the quality of garments or batches after production, identify defects, and ensure only high-quality products reach the customer.
Read more: What’s the Difference Between Quality Control and Quality Assurance?
How to Implement Quality Control and Assurance in the Apparel Industry
Implementing robust QA and QC processes requires clear strategies and a commitment to excellence at every stage of production. Here are the steps successful brands take when targeting the increased quality of their textiles and apparel.
Develop a Quality Assurance Framework
Establishing well-documented and standardized procedures accessible to everyone involved in the production process is the first step toward efficient quality assurance. To ensure consistency and minimize variability, do the following:
Define quality standards and benchmarks for your garments' materials, fit, and construction (e.g., fabric weight, thread count, etc.)
Create Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) with step-by-step guidelines for suppliers, manufacturers, and internal teams.
Create detailed instructions for testing and inspections. Include sustainability criteria and other specifications on how to evaluate raw materials, samples, and finished products.
Build a feedback system to collect customer reviews and analyze data to prevent recurring issues and improve quality.
Ensure you collaborate only with trusted suppliers through regular evaluation. You can leverage third parties to test to help ensure there are no weak links in your supply chain.
Train employees to build internal expertise and expand knowledge on inspection techniques, sustainability practices, and quality benchmarks.
Strengthen Quality Control Efforts
Effective quality control ensures that high-quality products reach your customers and meet brand standards. To minimize errors and avoid costly rework, do the following:
Conduct rigorous inspections and tests in various production stages to verify the quality of raw materials, fabrics, samples, and finished products.
Conduct random sampling using an test with a percentage of products from each batch to ensure consistency before shipment.
Invest in tools and technologies such as those described below to simplify processes, centralize data, and monitor production and inspection.
Partner with Specialized Companies
Hiring a third-party quality assurance provider like QIMA is recommended if you lack in-house expert knowledge. These specialists can bring valuable experience and deliver unbiased assessments to ensure transparency and objectivity. In addition, offloading QC tasks will free up your employees and allow them to focus on other high-priority areas.
What Tools and Technologies Can Streamline QA / QC for Apparel Brands?
Technology is critical in any e-commerce business, and quality assurance is no exception. Modern software solutions can provide real-time metrics, allowing brands to monitor production remotely and identify issues before they become problematic.
The most prominent tools and technologies used by successful fashion brands and third-party quality control providers include:
Risk management tools: test that continuously analyze various data sources to provide early warnings of potential disruptions or delays.
KPI dashboards: test and test that offer options like inspection scheduling, instant reporting, and centralized access to your QC data.
How Can QIMA Help with Quality Assurance and Quality Control?
Given the importance of quality for digital-native fashion brands, implementing QA processes and selecting quality control providers should be a priority. At QIMA, we offer:
test to book a service or learn more about how we help you test.
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