If you are a business owner who makes their money by selling products that are manufactured by a different party, then you no doubt understand how important it is to invest in good product inspections. In a perfect world, it would not be necessary to have products inspected, but, unfortunately, mistakes can be made during the production process and while you may be forgiving of these mistakes, your customers will not be as forgiving. There are few better ways to hurt your business than by selling defective or otherwise damaged products. So, you need to make sure you are getting products inspected at some point along the supply chain. There are several different stages at which product inspection can occur.
First article inspection
This type of inspection is probably the earliest stage of inspection. This stage of inspection occurs after the first unit is manufactured. As many people no doubt know, whenever you get products manufactured, the factory doing the manufacturing will create a test unit to ensure that the product works and that it does what it is supposed to do. It also ensures that the product created falls in line with whatever specifications were originally given to the factory. Getting an inspection done at this stage will ensure that the rest of the units will not be built based off a flawed prototype.
Production process inspections
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Product inspections can also take place while the product is being mass produced. This is exactly what production process inspections are intended to accomplish. The main benefit of getting inspections done at this stage is that any potential issues that may pop up during manufacturing can be resolved relatively quickly and without any serious delay. If you are a business owner who has strict deadlines that you need to meet, this is probably the best inspection option since it ensures that there is minimal disruption in your schedule.
Container inspections
As the name suggests, this type of inspections occurs after the product has been manufactured and is being loaded into containers to be shipped. It is very common, especially with very big orders, for a carton to be left off while the containers are being loaded. Getting container inspections done ensures that all the containers have the exact number of cartons that they should. This helps prevent any issues wherein you have to pay to get single cartons shipped to you that got left off the original shipment by mistake.
Last shipment inspections
The final stage of inspections occurs after the product has been manufactured and before it gets shipped off. Generally, if you are trying to conserve money and can really only afford to get inspections done at one stage, then this is the stage to get inspections done at.