Quality Control & Production Follow-Up
An inspection that happens after production is finished tells you whether to accept a container. An inspection that happens during production lets the factory correct the run. The second is worth considerably more than the first, and costs the same.
- Inspected while production is still correctable
- Checked against your written specification
- Photographic evidence, not a pass or fail
- Findings reported before the balance is paid
Why timing decides the value
Final inspection is a veto: the goods either pass or they do not, and if they do not your options are rework, discount or walking away from a deposit. Every one of those is expensive and slow, and by then the production slot is gone.
Inspecting during the run changes what a finding means. A tolerance drifting on the first few hundred units is a machine setting; the same drift discovered across a finished order is a scrapped batch. The cost of catching it is identical, the cost of the consequence is not.
What is checked
| Stage | Checked | Why then |
|---|---|---|
| Pre-production | Materials and components | Wrong input cannot be inspected out later |
| First article | First units against the spec | Cheapest point to correct a setting |
| During production | Sampled across the run | Catches drift, not just start quality |
| Packing | Cartons, labels, quantities | Where wholesale deliveries get rejected |
| Pre-shipment | Final sample and documents | Last check before the balance is paid |
Follow-up is not only inspection
Production slips for reasons that have nothing to do with quality: a component supplier is late, a public holiday closes the plant, a more important customer takes the line. None of these appear in an inspection report and all of them move your delivery date.
Being present means those surface while there is still time to react, reallocate, re-plan the freight, or tell your buyer early. A delay you know about three weeks out is a scheduling problem. The same delay discovered on the expected ship date is a stockout.
Quality Control & Production Follow-Up FAQs
When does inspection happen?
What do I actually receive?
Is this the same as the quality control on my dropshipping stock?
What if the goods fail?
Ready to hand over fulfillment?
Tell us your daily order volume and main markets. We come back with the routes and the per-order price your actual profile needs.