4 Reasons Why Can’t Just Let your Supplier Do the Quality Assurance Inspection

3 Main ways in Quality Assurance Inspection

When you’re importing products from China or any other country for that matter, there are three main ways the quality assurance inspection can be accomplished.

• First, you can choose to visit the Chinese factory yourself and conduct the inspection if you have the means, expertise, and time.
• Secondly, and this is the most commonly used method, you may hire an inspection agency to do the work for you.
• Lastly, you can let your supplier inspect and assure the quality of the items you’re buying from them.

To many people, this third option can sound ridiculous for many reasons. So, why don’t many importers allow their suppliers to do the quality assurance inspection on their behalf?

Let’s comprehensively look at below:

The Most Compelling FOUR reasons

1) Conflict of Interest & Trust Issues

Proper quality assurance inspection of the goods you’re importing is better done by another party other than the manufacturer or supplier for obvious reasons. If the supplier does it themselves, how can you trust them 100% to do the right thing while they’re the ones who made those items?

Naturally, they may tend to be skewed in their judgment sometimes. More often than not, a third-party inspection like an appointed agency AQI Service has no other interests in the process of inspection other than ensuring the express quality of items as you’ve agreed in the contract you signed together. Of course, it’s even better if you (the importer) were in a position to do this inspection yourself.

2) Process Audit May be Necessary

If you find that your product imports have quality issues, finding the root cause of this needs to be handled very carefully. Often, this will require the input of a specially-trained engineer who can perform a process audit.

Such a procedure is used to meticulously examine production processes in a bid to identify exactly what’s causing certain quality problems. If you, your inspection agency and your supplier can’t diagnose the actual source of quality control issues, a Process audit or During production inspection will likely be the only surefire option remaining.

3) Any Legal Issues Can Get Murky

Once you’ve allowed your product supplier in China to do the quality assurance inspection for you, there’s a lot that you’re surrendering into their hands. In case you find that you aren’t satisfied with the quality of your goods once they’ve reached US shores, suing the Chinese manufacturer for that kind of breach of contract can really get complicated.

In fact, the factory might even threaten to counter-sue you! Often, it’s too expensive and difficult for importers from outside China to take their Chinese suppliers to court. While these costs can be prohibitive for smaller companies and individuals, larger companies may find the court process a necessary inconvenience to prevent future issues.

4) A benefit to Future Inspections

Most dedicated inspection firms, if not all, will have a set of criteria they apply in their quality inspections. These will best be outlined in a pre-prepared QC checklist. Any issues they find as they inspect your products, they’ll compile for future reference. Often, they’ll also have a detailed report that you can view to see the details and if need be, use it to exercise sound judgment about whether your order should be shipped or not. Such reports are more difficult to come by if the inspection is done by the manufacturer.

Sometimes, some of the things you want them to disclose may be considered technical secrets by the factory. That isn’t the case with third-party agencies.

Finally, do you have any in mind for quality control solutions for your goods from China now? Welcome to contact us at any time.

Author: AQI Service as a professional quality control service company in China specialized in providing a complete range of quality inspection and testing certification services in China & Asia for global importers, buyers, retailers, and sellers.