There is no fixed answer to this question. You need to tell the types of garments you handled in the past and those you are currently handling.
If you are already working in a garment factory, you know what kind of apparel products you are making. You just need to name those products. For example, Shirts, knitted tops, ladies’ dresses, woven blouses, trousers, suits, and designer dresses are examples of different types of apparel products.
2. How do you manage quality in the cutting room, sewing floor, and finishing section?
Explain the way you used to manage cutting room quality, stitching floor quality, and finishing section garment quality in the current factory.
You can answer this question this way – in the cutting room, you inspect patterns, markers, and after cutting, you check cut panels randomly for their shapes, cutting quality, and fabric defects.
In a sewing line, you check garment inline checkpoints, random checking of a garment at all operations, and end-of-line checking is done.
In the finishing stage, initial finishing checking is done prior to pressing, and after pressing, final finishing inspection is done.
If you prepare a quality checking report and analyze quality report data, you can mention those points as well.
3. How many quality checkers are needed in a 500-machine factory on the stitching floor and finishing section?
It depends. You can reply to this question based on the current factory quality checkers number. Further for your information, if the factory size is different and different types of products are made by the factory, you need to calculate the quality checker requirement for a 500-machines factory. Here is an example for calculating the quality checker requirement.
Note that depending on the product type, calculate the machine requirement per sewing line (this an IE’s task). Once you have a sewing line number, you can calculate the quality checker requirement as follows.
– 1 end-of-line checker per line
– 1 roving/inline checker per line
The number of inline checkers required depends on the critical operations (which depend on the product and style). Let’s consider 1 in-line checker per line.
So, you need 3 checkers per line. If you set 20 lines for 500 machines, you will be needed 60 checkers on the stitching floor
Additionally, you need a cutting section quality checker and fabric checkers.
In the garment finishing stage, checker requirement will vary depending on the daily production quantity and garment quality made in sewing and processing. One checker can check 200-250 garments per day (8 hours) in the finishing stage. Calculate the total number of checkers in the finishing section according to your production volume.
4. As per your experience, what are the primary reasons for quality issues in cutting, stitching, and finishing departments?
If you worked as a quality controller or QA for some time, you know the kind of quality issues you faced and the possible reasons for such quality issues. Give an answer to this question based on your understanding and analysis. You can categorise defects as follows –
- Reason for cutting quality issues
- Reasons for fabric shrinkage, shade variation, printing, and Embroidery defects
- Reasons for stitching defects and handling defects.
For your reference, read this post.
5. What kind of inspection system would you prefer to set up on the sewing floor?
The answer to this question is subjective.
If you are new, note the following possible checkpoints for the sewing floor.
- – Random quality inspection
- – Roving quality inspection (traffic light system)
- – Inline checkpoint at critical operation
- – Sequential checking
- – Checking their own garment by operators
- – End-of-line garment checking
- – Quality audit of End of line checked garments
6. I have heard other factories follow the traffic light system. What is that? Can we implement that tool?
If you know the traffic light system for quality control on the shop floor, explain it to the interviewer. A traffic light system for quality control in roving quality control tool used in checking garments at all the operations and sewing workstation when operators are on the job. If you are not aware of this system, read the post on the traffic light system and gain knowledge about this.
7. What are the primary KPIs for the quality control department?
I have written a post on key performance indicators (KPI) for the quality control department. Read that article for detailed information. If you are measuring a different set of quality control KPI, you can share those with the interviewer.
8. Can you explain the use of the AQL Chart
Acceptable quality level (AQL) is a common tool used for quality inspection in the apparel industry. Hope you already know about the AQL system and the AQL chart. Read more about the AQL Chart.
9. What would be your strategy to improve the quality level in production departments, from cutting to finishing?
Think and note down how you will be implementing the quality system in your next company. Normally, you need to tell how you will set up the quality control department in production departments, including the cutting section, the stitching floor, and the finishing section. You can answer this question this way for the quality improvement strategy
- Build a quality control team
- Prepare SOP for all processes
- Train the quality team and increase quality awareness among the workers
- Set up a quality inspection procedure
- Data collection from quality checkpoints and data analysis
- Corrective action plan
- Measure quality control KPIs
- Implementing a quality circle
- Implementing 5S and lean tools for reducing defect generation in the process.
How will the quality system help the factory to improve the current product and process quality? The quality system should include the following
- Quality checkpoints, quality data collection through a check sheet
- SOP for processes and tasks
- Process control
- Finding the root cause of defect generation
- Take action to remove the root causes of the defect generation
- Don’t move defective work to the next process
- Fabric should be checked thoroughly, and only acceptable fabrics should be issued.
By eliminating defect generation at the source, the quality of the product can be improved.
10. Do you know about problem-solving tools and their use? Can you implement those tools in our factory to eliminate quality issues from the root?
You can list down defects that you frequently found in the garment you/your team checked. This is not a difficult question; you can be prepared with the ready list.
Explore the list of defects found in woven garments and knitted garments
13. Do you know the application of the 4-point system for fabric inspection? Can you explain what does 4-Point system means?
Answer this question based on your work experience in the previous companies as a quality control professional.
Inspection is the task that quality checkers do – checking of all garments, checking of fabric lots, and checking of cut components. Inspection is done during the process by following the standard method. In inspection or checking, you segregate good pieces and defective pieces. The defective garments are repaired and further inspected before moving to the next process. Inspection of the garment is done a daily basis.
On the other hand, an audit is inspecting the process is correctly followed. An audit is done to check the reliability of the quality process, check checker performance, assess the quality performance level of the factory. In the apparel industry, for the shipment audit, based on AQL chart number of garments from the offered shipment and checked and an audit report is made. In auditing, auditor declares a result either shipment is passed or rejected.
16. Do you have any idea about the cost of poor quality?
Total money a garment factory can save if there is no quality issue in the products at all is the cost of poor quality. Cost of poor quality can be explained in another way – the total money factory spends to make the product up to an acceptable quality level. Money spends on a garment and material inspection, quality checkers’ training and in labour for repair work.
Watch this video and this article for more information about the cost of poor quality.
Show your confidence on the job and let them know that you can successfully implement a quality control system in a garment factory. If required, learn garment quality management system (QMS), quality control tools, and quality improvement strategies.
It takes time to implement a system in a readymade garment factory. With a good team and top management support, the basic quality control system can be implemented in 6 months. (This is my answer).
You should tell your answer: How much time do you need to set up the quality control system?
18. What are the areas buyers look at in terms of product quality when they audit the shipment?
Further, they inspect garment packaging and carton labelling at the final inspection stage.
19. What is statistical quality control (SQC)? Can you implement SQC on the sewing floor?
For the statistical quality control in the garment factory, you can use one of the 7 tools of quality control. Normally, check sheets for capturing the quality data, control chart for data analysis and cause and effect diagram is used in statistical quality control.
Explore more on SQC on the internet. You will find many good resources for SQC in the apparel manufacturing sector.
The following are the 7 tools of quality control.
- Checksheet
- Control chart
- Flowchart or run chart
- Pareto chart
- Histogram
- Cause-and-effect diagram (also known as the “fishbone” or Ishikawa diagram)
- Scatter diagram
For example, details of 7 tools are in this article
Hope you find the answer helpful.
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