Intertek's comprehensive textile and apparel inspection services help assure you deliver the highest-quality products to market with speed and precision.
The textile and apparel supply chain often puts retailers and brands thousands of miles away from their production sites, making inspection an important part of the manufacturing process to assure quality. From raw materials to finished goods, Intertek’s textile and apparel inspection services can identify defects and non-compliance during different stages of the production process.
With more than 1,000 inspectors around the globe, and 700 in China alone, Intertek offers Pre-production, During Production Inspection or Garment Inline Inspection services, and Before Delivery Inspection to assess textile and apparel products pre-shipment in order to evaluate your products both pre-, during and post-production.
Pre-production Inspection:
- Incoming quality control
- Raw materials check
During Production Inspection:
- Sampling of finished products
- Identify problems found in the inspection report
- Acknowledgement by factory of inspection findings
Garment Inline Inspection:
- Sampling of both semi-finished and finished products to assure the quality of the entire production batch
- Works with the factory on developing and implementing corrective action plans based on inspection findings
- Provides housekeeping, social compliance and safety visual checks
Before delivery:
- Final random inspection
- 100% inspection of all finished goods
- Loading supervision
Intertek’s textile and apparel inspection services help you assure product quality by identifying varying levels of defects in your products, including:
- Critical Defects – hazardous or unsafe conditions or non-compliance with regulations, includes sharp points or edges, stray needles left in the garment, loose studs or missing suffocation warning labels
- Major Defects – overall product failure or reduced usability of the product that prevents it from being placed on the market, can include open seams, holes or broken stitches
- Minor Defects – unlikely to reduce product usability, includes items such as loose threads
During textile and apparel inspections, Intertek conducts the following:
- Fabric Check – assesses weight (sweaters), print quality, defects, hand feel to standards
- Garment Labeling – to ensure label contains all required information, including registered identification number (RN), country of origin, fabric content/care and attachment of label in the proper location
- Workmanship Assessment – evaluates stitching, construction, attachments and fasteners, embellishments, shading within a garment, pattern continuity/matching, tapes and linings
The textile and apparel inspection procedure also ensures that fabric width, fabric length and fabric appearance (weaving quality, splices, odors) comply with the relevant standards and regulations during the production process.
Prior to shipping, Intertek textile and apparel inspectors review the packaging list to ensure it includes overall carton count and carton numbers, carton dimension and weight, shipping label, style or shade identification and corresponding counts in the carton and packing slip.
Once the carton is packed, Intertek confirms the actual garment count, the carton is packed as specified, appropriate carton dimensions are displayed, poly bags are checked, hangtags are included to confirm SKU/price, barcodes are included and the garment shade identification is correct.
Intertek also provides comprehensive Textile Auditing services that assess the quality, procedures and systems of each facility, textile factory and mill. Contact our Total Quality Assurance experts to discuss your requirements.