Putting Quality in Supply Chain

Putting Quality in Supply Chain | LoadProof

I would think that electronics OEMs or distributors would be leading the charge toward quality, and I’m sure many of them are. However, the first time I encountered a quality department that did extensive quality control it was in a New Hampshire distribution center (DC) that served the apparel industry.

For this manufacturer, the goal was to make fairly priced clothing that delivered good quality to middle-aged women. The Director of Quality at the warehouse, along with her team, did such a good job that this retailer was known for its quality. To meet their quality goals, workers spent a lot of time measuring the tops and pants against strict criteria, checking the cut of the pieces, figuring out how the pieces would look on real people, and making sure that the colors were good for a variety of skin tones. They thought of everything. They took pictures and shared infractions with their vendors across the supply chain.

Quality inspection

Quality inspection is a relatively simple process. Basically, a percentage of the product received is set aside for quality check, done at the vendor level. If the vendor has a good track record, its percentage would be lower. Vendors with issues in the past might be assigned a higher percentage. Then the vendor’s performance is measured using Vendor Performance codes. Each code indicates a specific infraction, to identify issues ranging from the label being applied wrong to an incorrect product quantity. Problems, when identified, are issues as charge back to vendors including labor spent fixing infractions.

Quality audit

Quality audits involve a more detailed quality check. A defined sample is set aside from each shipment and rigorous checks are performed against those samples, often multiple times. If quality is lacking, further samples might be checked from the shipment. This is typically done for products coming from a manufacturing plant. In most cases, these products would be received right from the manufacturing line.

Click here to continue reading this article.

Comments

Optimize Your Warehouse Replenishments with these Best Practices | LoadProof

This best practice is about making replenishments inside the warehouse. It is important to stay on the top off replenishments always in your warehouse. If you have just one shift that you are running it would help a lot. If you spend extra hours in the evening and then do the topping off all your active locations it will be helpful for the pickers in the next shift. In the next morning when the pickers come after all the locations will be full and they can start picking right away without wasting time in replenishments. If you have two shifts running either choose the second shift or have a third shift if possible and keep doing the top off replenishments. There are active replenishment locations and these active locations have Min and Max. Whenever your inventory falls below min, replenishments are going to get triggered or it will get triggered if there is an order that needs a lot of picks from a particular location. This will drive the location down which will tri...

Picture Documentation for Freight Claims White Paper – Part I | LoadProof

INTRODUCTION This document describes the benefits of an effective Picture Documentation System(PDS) that helps with getting Freight Claims Paid faster. An effective pictures documentation system helps with 1 – Get Freight Claims paid much faster by making pictures available quickly and easily, 2 – Provides visibility to the damages through pictures. The visibility gained provides insight into the handling mistakes made while the orders are fulfilled, so that the parties can determine and establish accountability boundaries and get the shipper paid. BACKGROUND What are Freight Claims? A freight claim is a legal demand by a shipper or a consignee to a carrier for financial reimbursement for a loss or a damage of a shipment. Freight Claims are claims submitted by manufacturers/suppliers/shippers to transportation vendors and or carriers, when the goods the Supplier shipped did not arrive at the destination in a pristine state. Instead it arrived as damaged, the packaging was damaged...

3PL Panacea: The Flexible Mobile Supply Chain Platform | LoadProof

The third-party logistics (3PL) business is tough, because it covers a wide gamut of service offerings, that include some combination of: Just move my boxes and/or pallets. Move my boxes and/or pallets and store them in your warehouse. Move my boxes and/or pallets and operate my facility. Own all the labor and activities in my facility. Offer all distribution services for my product (All I will do is download my orders into your system/supply chain). I’ve even run into more complicated models of operation, including both tightly and loosely coupled models. In a tightly-coupled model, the supply chain systems of the 3PL, including orders, inventory, transportation, advanced shipment notices, purchase orders, and more, are tightly integrated into the shipper’s supply chain systems. All this information seamlessly flows between both supply chain systems of the 3PL and the shipper. They stay in synch with each other and the parties perform the functions in their respective syst...

Image Enabling The Supply Chain

Search This Blog