Quality assurance (QA) is a way of testing and checking the products so that the items and groups of items are what they should be. It is very important to have multiple quality control points:
- QA at receiving and during putaway process (quality indication of each logistic unit of goods in a warehouse);
- QA at shipping (weight verification, order accuracy, compliance).
Advantages of Quality Assurance
- Quantity accuracy. Quality control will help you monitor the quantity of your packages. Manual inspection is a thing of the past. No human error, no wasted delivery charges for the wrong item.
- Weight accuracy. Any discrepancy on the package weight means quality issue.
- Safe and intact inspection. Inspection of goods or items sometimes passes several tests from production until it is shipped to the customer’s door.
A receiving QA system should allow you to set a percentage of the inbound receipt to set aside for quality assurance. The QA criteria can be preset based on:
- Vendor performance – If you always have high quality issue with products from certain vendors then you should set the quantity to be inspected high (up to 100%).
- Shipper performance – If you always have breakage issue with item delivery from certain carriers then you should set the quantity to be inspected high (up to 100%).
- Item performance – Depending on the product type, certain items are marked for full inspection (pharmaceutical) while others required little to none (household hardware).
In addition, the inbound QA system allows you to put away (in quarantine hold) the remainder of the receipt.? Once the disposition of the QA percentage is determined, the remainder quantity can be released from hold or pulled for more inspection.
An outbound QA system should allow you to set a percentage of the outbound shipment to for product integrity and order accuracy. The inspection point should be configurable to allow for order quality check either at the packing station (before packing) or staging area (before shipping).
UMexX’s advanced capabilities include configurable process, passive and active QA, performance criteria, disposition, and quarantine.
