Basic Concepts of Quality Control

Quality inspection can be understood as a process that checks whether products received from the manufacturing team or company meet, the already mentioned specifications. When running a business, it is important to check the functionality and quality of products before shipping them. Businesses feel the need to inspect products because poor quality products directly affect their business reputation. Most companies, however, prefer to outsource because it is cost-effective than maintaining an in house staff.

Quality inspection is a comprehensive process consisting of several protocols and drills. It is always better to know the concepts that revolve around inspection and quality control services.

• Inspection Levels –Shipments consist of several products that are packed together to reach purchasers. It is always advised to have random inspections and for that, you need to randomly select the products. This random sample needs to be inspected following all the steps and protocols as is common in an inspection process. Random sample selection is effective because all products have a fair chance of getting selected for inspection. Special inspections are conducted depending upon the product type and the intensity of the product testing situation which can take up more time as compared to a routine inspection.

• Acceptance Quality Limit – The next phase in quality control and inspection is the Acceptance Quality Limit (AQL). This level states that there are no concepts of zero defects in the products. There are certain proportions of defects that are tolerated in the consumer market. This completely depends on the products or services you are selling or dealing with. Fault areas in inspection processes lead to tampering results and corruption. So be clear about the defect limit that is acceptable in your business. Suppliers need to have a clear idea about their defects acceptability percentage to get best products in the business.

• Inspection Phase – Professional quality inspectors need to know about the various phases of inspection. An understanding of all these phases will prove to be helpful for both the professionals and manufacturers as well.

o Pre-Production Inspection – This is the first stage in inspection when you need to check raw materials and components used in making the products. Buying cheap materials seem to be profitable for the manufacturing company. But you need to take control and prevent that from happening.

o During Production Inspection – Production processes involve several methods that go into making the products. It is important for professional inspection teams to scrutinize and check all the stages of production to be sure of the quality and functionality of the products.

o Pre-Shipment Inspection – Inspecting products and goods after they are ready and packed is part of quality assurance. Inspectors need to check the details minutely and confirm that the packed products have met the standard protocol.

o Loading Supervision – Loading products for shipping has its own set of rules and guidelines. The inspection team needs to supervize the entire loading process to check that these guidelines are followed.

An understanding and clarity about these concepts are sure to help manufacturing teams and enterprises to know about the inspection stages involved from manufacturing the products to shipping them.