Garment quality control and inspection in Bangladesh

What AQL actually means, and what it does not

AQL stands for Acceptance Quality Limit, and it comes from a published statistical standard: ISO 2859-1, which is equivalent to the American ANSI/ASQ Z1.4 and uses the same tables. The standard tells you how many pieces to pull from a lot and how many defects you may find before the lot is rejected. Most apparel work uses General Inspection Level II, with limits of 2.5 for major defects and 4.0 for minor ones.

Here is the part suppliers rarely explain: AQL is a decision rule, not a quality target. Setting AQL 2.5 does not mean you have agreed that 2.5% of your garments can be faulty. It means that if the inspected sample contains more defects than the table allows, the lot is rejected and reworked. The difference matters when someone tells you a shipment "passed AQL" as though that were a statement about how good it is.

Critical, major, minor: agree the definitions first

Every defect found is classified, and the classification decides whether the lot passes. A critical defect is one that makes the product unsafe or unsaleable, such as a broken needle left in a garment; those are normally not tolerated at all. A major defect would cause a customer to return the item or a retailer to reject it. A minor defect is visible to an inspector but would not, on its own, stop a sale.

The trap is that these words mean different things to different people. A 1.5 cm measurement deviation is minor on a relaxed hoodie and major on a tailored shirt. A slight shade difference between the body and the sleeve is minor on workwear and fatal on a fashion product. So we agree the defect classification with you in writing before production starts, against your sealed sample, rather than discovering at final inspection that you and the factory were using the same word for different things.

Fabric inspection is where orders are actually saved

If you only fund one check, fund this one. Fabric is close to half the cost of a basic garment, and a fault discovered after cutting has already been multiplied by the number of pieces cut. The industry standard is the 4-point system, published as ASTM D5430: defects are given one to four penalty points depending on their length, no single linear yard can be charged more than four points, and the total is expressed as points per 100 square yards.

The threshold is yours to set. Forty points per 100 square yards is a common acceptance level, but your product decides: a plain white shirting deserves a tighter limit than a heavy workwear twill. We also check width, weight in GSM and shade against the approved standard before anything is cut, because a roll that is two centimetres narrow changes the marker and quietly costs you fabric on every layer.

The five checks on an order

Final inspection alone is the most expensive way to run quality control, because by the time it fails, everything has already been made. The value is in catching problems while the number of affected pieces is still small.

That is why an initial production check on the first bundles is worth more than its cost, and why a during-production check at roughly a fifth to half sewn catches the slow drift that happens when a line changes shift or an operator is replaced.

What a proper inspection report contains

You should receive the evidence, not a verdict. A report that says "passed" and nothing else is not quality control; it is reassurance. Ours arrives with photographs, measurements against your chart, and the defect list written out so you can judge for yourself.

• Measurements of sampled pieces against your size chart, with the tolerance shown
• Workmanship defects listed and classified, with photographs of each
• Shade and appearance checked against the sealed sample under controlled lighting
• Labels, hang tags, barcodes and care content checked and scanned
• Packing, polybags, carton marking, carton dimensions and weight
• The accept or reject decision, with the sample size and limits it was judged against
• Wash test results where the product or the decoration requires them

Our inspectors, third-party firms, or both

There are three ways this gets done and we are comfortable with all of them. Our own quality team inspects every order as part of our service, and the important structural point is that they work for you rather than for the factory, which is the entire reason a buying house exists.

Independent firms such as QIMA, SGS, Intertek and Bureau Veritas sell inspection as a standalone service, priced per man-day, and they add a layer of independence that some retailers require in writing. Many established buyers use both: our team through production, a third-party firm at final inspection. We welcome them at any stage, book access for them, and share the same documentation. A supplier who resists an independent inspector is telling you something.

What to fix before production, not after

Most quality disputes we have seen were created before a single garment was sewn, by something left undefined. The list below is what we settle with you at the pre-production stage.

• The sealed sample, approved by you, which every later check is judged against
• Measurement tolerances per point of measure, in writing, not assumed
• Defect classification: what counts as critical, major and minor on this product
• The AQL levels to apply, and whether a stricter limit applies to any point
• Fabric acceptance threshold in points per 100 square yards
• Wash test requirements and who pays for a re-test if it fails
• Packing, labelling and carton specification, including your retailer’s own rules

What inspection cannot do

Inspection finds problems; it does not create quality. A final inspection cannot rescue an order cut from the wrong fabric, sewn to an unapproved sample or graded from a size chart nobody checked. By that point your choices are rework, discount or rejection, and all three cost you money and time.

Quality is built at three earlier points: the sealed sample, the fabric approval and the pre-production meeting. Inspection then verifies that bulk matches what was agreed. Any supplier who talks only about AQL and never about those three is selling you a safety net instead of a plan.