Quality and inspection
Checking goods on arrival.
Most importers unload, stack and discover problems weeks later when a customer complains. A short structured check at receipt catches damage, shortfall and specification drift while the evidence still exists and the deadlines have not passed.
The check itself.
It takes twenty minutes and it happens before the container is empty, which is the part people get wrong.
- 01
Photograph the seal and the doors
Before breaking the seal. Number, condition, and the load as it sits. Without this nothing about transit can be established later.
- 02
Count against the packing list
Cartons or pallets, not weight. A short count is a claim and a light weight usually is not.
- 03
Look at the outside of the cartons
Crushing, water marks, staining. Damage patterns tell you whether it was stow, handling or packing.
- 04
Open a sample and compare to the reference
Against your sealed retained sample rather than against memory. This is the specification check.
- 05
Record and file
Batch codes, quantities, defects and photographs, filed against the consignment. It takes minutes and it is what makes a later claim possible.
What to sample.
Enough to be representative rather than everything. For most consumer goods a defined number of cartons from different parts of the load is sufficient.
From different parts of the load, because problems cluster. Cartons near the doors and against the walls see different conditions.
Retain your own sample from every consignment, sealed and dated. It costs nothing and it is the only way to argue about a later delivery.
What to do with what you find.
Small variation within tolerance goes in the record and nowhere else. The value is the trend.
Anything outside specification gets raised in writing the same day, with photographs and quantities.
Transit damage goes to the carrier and the insurer immediately, because their time limits are short and they are contractual.
A pattern across shipments goes into the supplier review, which is a very different conversation from a single complaint.
Questions buyers ask.
Is this worth it on every shipment?
The photographs and the count are, always, because they cost minutes and they are the only evidence that will exist. The depth of the specification check can scale with how well the supplier has been performing.
Who should do it?
Whoever receives the goods, with a one-page checklist. It does not need a technical person, it needs a consistent one.
What if I find a problem after the goods are sold?
That is exactly what the retained sample and the receipt record are for. Without them you are describing a problem, and with them you are evidencing one.
Read next.
When the shipment is wrong
The first forty-eight hours decide what you can recover. What to do in order, and what destroys a claim.
Inspecting before it sails
The five moments worth inspecting, what a report has to contain, and the mistake that makes an inspection worthless.
Traceability and recalls
If you had to withdraw a batch tomorrow, could you say which one. What to hold before you need it.
Weights and shortfall
Goods weighed at origin and at destination rarely match. Which gaps are normal and which are a claim.
Inspect at the factory or the port
Where you inspect decides what you can still fix. The trade-off between catching problems early and catching them all.
What quality costs
Inspection, testing and audits look like overhead until you price the alternative.
Sourcing from Indonesia?
Tell us the product, the quantity and the destination. We come back with what it involves before anyone talks about money.