A Quality Management System, which is documented and implemented, can be a key component in enhancing quality control for fashion product production and sampling. Quality control is important in the fashion industry as clothing and apparel must meet a minimum standard to appeal to consumers and not waste your time and money.
A QMS, also known as a quality management or quality assurance system, is a vital part of improving the quality control for fashion product samples and production. A QMS examines all of your company’s policies, procedures, and processes that can help you improve efficiency and organization. Quality control is important in the fashion industry as clothing and apparel must meet certain standards to appeal to consumers and not waste your time and money.
A well-designed QMS can help you to identify quality problems before they reach these logistically more complex production stages. Fashion businesses should aim to understand the QMS’s benefits and use them effectively in order to achieve their goals.
Elements of QMS for Fashion Designers to Consider and Adopt
A quality management system can be tailored to meet your specific business requirements. Some elements work well in a business-oriented fashion. These include:
* Objectives and policy for quality: As a designer, you’ll need to determine what standards of quality apply to products that your company produces. Then, define the objectives for the materials and defective products based on these standards. A quality manual can help you manage them.
* Instructions and procedures — A guide on how to do things will help your employees, both those who are currently working for you and any new hires that come along later, follow the protocol. This could be done by providing instructions for the quality assurance sample phase.
Records: Seeing what you’ve done with past projects will help you improve and test your production and sampling processes. Fashion businesses will have quality assurance sheets, procedure sheets, and quality checklists. Documentation that is comprehensive and covers all aspects of fashion apparel can help ensure that nothing is missed. Check for high-quality fashion apparel or clothing by checking the following: material, content, stitching, even seams, pattern and color, and lining.
* Management of data– All the data that is valuable to your business must be accessible and structured. To manage this, you can use a variety of user-friendly tools such as Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive, and Dropbox.
* Customer Satisfaction– Get feedback from each client that you work with. It will help you improve your designs and products in the future. The best way to implement a QMS is by implementing a structured system that allows customers to rate or review a product after purchase. This data can then be stored in your QMS. There are also many ways to get customer feedback. These include monitoring your social media platforms, rewarding customers for their feedback, or sending out surveys.
* Inspection — The documents mentioned above should be accompanied by a thorough inspection method and given to experts. Stitching, seams, and fabric quality are some of the broad aspects that fashion apparel can be examined. Fit tests, seam strength tests, dry and moist crocking, fatigue tests, and stretch tests are some of the common tests that you can run on your samples during the inspection phase.
* Technical Packs – A technical pack is the most effective way to communicate your quality standards to your production partner. Your tech pack should be clear, concise, and detailed.
Benefits of Implementing a Quality Management System for Your Fashion Label
Customers gravitate toward companies that place quality first. The main reasons for implementing a QMS are this trend and the process improvements it brings. Other benefits include:
* Better product quality — Since you can manage the quality and design of your products by defining what you want, you’ll be able to improve the quality, regardless of whether you sell fashion accessories or clothing.
* Improved productivity and lower costs– Standardized protocols and standards bring more efficiency and organization. Setting out the steps and requirements for everyone will help to increase productivity and lower costs.
* Improved customer satisfaction: As we have already mentioned, consumers tend to be drawn to companies that place a high priority on quality products. A detailed process will ensure that your customers are delighted with the products you provide.
* Simplified Training for New Employees– It will be easier to train any new employees if you define what quality means to your business early on.
* Improved Competitiveness– Many competitors in the fashion industry strive to produce high-quality goods. You can also compete with them by using a QMS.
Quality management systems are a great way to improve the organization of a fashion business. The right elements can bring you many benefits. Most importantly, they will ensure maximum quality control. Implementing these elements can help your fashion business both in the long- and short term. They will add structure and establish quality benchmarks before defective or disorganized operations.
