Job Responsibilities of Buyer QC in Garments Industry

A buyer QC is also called a buying house QC or a buying QC, a person who certifies in-process and final garment products from the customer end, a customer employee who directly works in the supplier factory. From the buying house, called the ‘Field QA, Field QC’. A buying QC is highly respected in garment factories, and they are the ultimate authority on quality from the buyer’s end. This content is all about the Job Responsibilities of Buyer QC in the Garments Industry. I hope this article will be helpful to you.

Why do Apparel retailers require a ‘Buyer QC’ at the vendor Factory?

Retailers are buying finished garments from garment vendors. Generally, the vendor location and the customer warehouse are far away. For example, almost over 90% of garment suppliers are located in a few Asian countries like China, Bangladesh, and Vietnam are leading ready-made garments suppliers to the European and the USA region. The rest of the other manufacturers are India, Pakistan, Cambodia, and Sri Lanka. African regions have some manufacturers.

As the distance is high between the customer and the supplier. Garment buyers keep QC to follow up on their product quality in the manufacturing industry. We can call them to field QC. So that the garments can meet customer specifications. Customer field QC is known as buyer QC in the garments industry. This article is about the Importance of field QA/ Quality inspectors for Apparel retailers.

Job Description of a Buyer QC in the Garments Industry:

Pre-production meeting

‘Buying house’ leads to PP meetings; evaluate the Size set and PP samples, both workmanship and measurement parameters. Buyer QC verifies and discusses all QC parameters of the PP sample during the PP meeting.

Pilot run Meeting

Same as the PP meeting, but sample quantities are more than the PP samples. At this stage, the factory may cut 150 to 200 pieces.

Pattern corrections and cutting permission

If the PP/ Pilot run passes to buying QC, pattern correction can be done based on the Pre-production sample measurement. If buyers’ QC thinks the factory will be able to do bulk easily, give cutting permission to them. Buyer QC is the ultimate authority for giving cutting permission to vendors.

Sewing inline inspection

Sewing inline is one of the key tasks to verify garment maker’s packing good products.

Finishing the inline inspection

An inspection is conducted after completing the packing list of a lot to check product meets customer quality standards or not. If finishing inline fails to buyer QC, the factory has to recheck/ rework and buyer QC inspects them again.

Sample Inspection

All samples go through buying house or overseas buyers for approval, buyer QC checks them before dispatching them from the factory. If samples pass to buyer QC, then factories send them to the buyer’s office or the factory needs to make a new sample.

Final quality inspection

An inspection that certifies to shipment product to the buyer’s door. There is an isolated Final inspection room for buying QC which can be inspected independently.

Responsible for the vendor’s quality control

Every buyer has a certain number of vendors, so they distribute QC vendor-wise; one QC gets one vendor or two vendors as per the volume of business and product category. So the buyer QC’s responsibility is to follow up on all quality issues of a vendor.

Buying a house QC job in the Garments sector

A dream job everywhere working in a buying house, everyone calls the buyer QC as “buyer” in the garments industry. Every garment professional involved in the operations team (production/quality), chases the dream of being a buyer QC in the Garments industry.

1. QC inspector
2. Senior QC inspector
3. QC supervisor
4. Assistant Manager.
5. Manager

Requirements of a buying QC job

1. Academic: Minimum graduation in any discipline, but textile is preferable.
2. Age should be 33 to 40.
3. Experience a minimum of 7 to 10 years in garment quality Control. ( Varies from Buying house to buying house).
4. Must know all types of product and their inspection criteria.
5. Should be fluent in English speaking and good command of communication.
6. Good at quality data analysis and reporting.
7. Capable to handle and deal with vendors about the quality issue.
8. Should have sound knowledge of all types of fabrics, washing, and all types of products like woven bottom, woven tops, Knit, etc.
9. Only males are allowed for this job.
10. Capable of understanding AQL chart, shade, defect type, etc.