Quality and inspection
Writing a defect list.
A defect list says what counts as a fault and how serious it is, for your product specifically. Without one, an inspection produces a report saying the goods conform to the purchase order, which is worth nothing, and every disagreement afterwards is two opinions.
Three categories, and what separates them.
The categories are conventional and the content is yours. What belongs in each depends entirely on what the product does and who uses it, which is why a list borrowed from another product polices the wrong things.
- Critical
- A fault that could injure somebody or make the goods illegal to sell. A splinter in a child's toy, a chemical residue over a limit, a missing safety marking. Usually zero tolerance, and the number of these should be small.
- Major
- A fault a customer would notice and reject, or that stops the product doing its job. A joint that moves, a stain on a visible face, a count short of the carton marking.
- Minor
- A fault visible to somebody looking for it, which does not affect use or sale. A small mark on an underside, slight colour variation within the agreed tolerance.
Write it with the producer.
A workshop in Jepara knows which faults their process produces often and which are rare. A list written in a European office without that knowledge polices things that never happen and misses the ones that do.
It also has to be written against the material. Natural variation in wood, rattan or stone is not a defect, and a list that treats it as one will fail every lot and destroy the relationship. Agreeing what counts as variation and what counts as a fault is most of the work.
Photographs beat words. A photograph of an acceptable knot and an unacceptable one settles in a second what a paragraph cannot settle at all, and it survives translation.
How it connects to everything else.
The defect list feeds the sampling plan: the acceptance limits are set separately for critical, major and minor, because those are different kinds of problem with different consequences.
It feeds the inspection, which needs to know what to record. And it feeds the contract, which needs to say what happens when a lot fails: rework and re-inspect at whose cost, a discount, or cancellation.
Without it, all three are guesswork, and the person guessing is an inspector who has never seen your customers.
Questions buyers ask.
How long should the list be?
Long enough to cover what actually goes wrong with your product and short enough that an inspector can hold it in mind. Ten to twenty items with photographs is more useful than fifty items of prose, and the ones that matter are usually obvious after one bad shipment.
Can I reuse a list from another product?
As a starting structure, yes. As content, no. A defect list for ceramics polices glaze, crazing and chips. One for furniture polices joints, finish and moisture. Applying one to the other produces an inspection that checks the wrong things carefully.
What if the producer disagrees with a classification?
That conversation is the point of writing it together, and having it before production is free. Having it after a failed lot costs a container of goodwill. A producer who argues that a fault is minor is telling you something about what their process produces.
Read next.
What acceptance sampling actually proves
An inspector opens a fraction of the cartons. What that fraction can and cannot tell you, and how to set the level before a dispute.
Inspecting before it sails
The five moments worth inspecting, what a report has to contain, and the mistake that makes an inspection worthless.
Writing a specification suppliers can price
The document that decides what arrives. What belongs in it, what has to be measurable, and the words that cause disputes.
What a sample actually proves
The narrow question a sample answers, and why the sealed duplicate you never open is worth more than the one you evaluate.
Pre-shipment inspection
An independent check before the container is sealed. What it covers, what it cannot, and why it costs a fraction of the problem it prevents.
Approving the first piece
One unit made to your specification, approved in writing before the run starts. The last cheap moment in the process.
Choosing who inspects
Global firm, local specialist or your own agent. Six questions that separate a real inspection from photographs.
Rework at origin
A failed inspection is a decision. Which problems can be reworked and which end the shipment.
Sourcing from Indonesia?
Tell us the product, the quantity and the destination. We come back with what it involves before anyone talks about money.