How to Optimize Resources and Minimize Risks in the Hard Goods Industry
Inspectorio Inc
May 25, 2023
Inspectorio’s SIGHT platform is the transformative force Vera Bradley has been waiting for, according to an article recently published in Sourcing Journal.
Vera Bradley, a fashion brand whose products feature a large number of intricate patterns, requires a high degree of fabric quality assurance via overseas factory inspections. However, their inspection process brimmed with inefficiencies and logistical challenges.
Across the quality and compliance industry, many inspections are still recorded with pen and paper. Vital emails sit unread. Companies struggle to construct useful analytics from incomplete data. All of this translates to defects, wasted resources, and poor quality goods, which detract from companies’ speed to market, profit margins, and environmental and social quality standards.
These difficulties also force brands and retailers to police the production facilities of their suppliers abroad. This is both time-consuming and expensive, and can harm the partnership companies strive to establish with their factories.
Inspectorio SIGHT has brought a comprehensive solution to this
complex set of problems.
First, SIGHT consolidated all of Vera Bradley’s quality and compliance communications to one avenue. All involved parties now communicate through the platform, eliminating missed emails and issues arising from a lack of version control. Second, Vera Bradley reaps benefits from SIGHT’s machine learning.
This artificial intelligence predicts problems that might occur at certain facilities based on constantly updating data. “By allowing the company to quickly spot the root cause of production issues,” writes Sourcing Journal, “SIGHT has helped it avoid the dreaded defect and remediation cycle.”
Real-time data allows for improved communication, faster turnaround time with the disposition of product, and an overall increased efficiency of total inspection time across our entire global quality network.
“The increased level of analytics and predictability has allowed us to decrease the level of repeat occurrences for the same defects.”
The secret behind Inspectorio’s success is a common one among industry-disruptive firms: revolutionary simplification. By paring down a complicated process to its core elements, the Inspectorio platform delegates complexity to its robust backend of software and presents the user with a clean, intuitive interface.
This simplicity empowers brands.
“Each decision-maker [can] identify opportunities for improvement in real time and…gather analytics and understanding for their own performance in a timely manner.” David Klein, Inspectorio’s Cofounder and Managing Director.
SIGHT also creates the opportunity for Self Inspections. Inspectorio’s platform is continuously amassing information on factory performance, giving companies like Vera Bradley the opportunity to judge which factories are top-tier and which are underperforming. A factory in good standing can self-inspect — at Vera Bradley’s discretion — and thereby free up resources for the brand.
Vera Bradley can then “‘ask the factories to share their Self Inspection Reports directly on the platform so they have visibility over the defects captured and results of the inspections,’” says Klein. “‘…Our platform provides the ability for them to standardize workflows, defect lists, and AQLs, making sure that all factories, vendors, and the QAs at each are following the same processes with the same inspection standards.’”
According to Geiger, giving factories permission to self-inspect has allowed Vera Bradley to “‘improve our resource allocation to higher risk and underperforming factories….allowing us to be more proactive than reactive to issues…. Inspectorio SIGHT empowers brands and retailers to work more efficiently,” letting them
“get out in front of problems before they occur.”
Inspectorio SIGHT is an end-to-end quality control platform that digitizes and optimizes pre-production, inline, final, warehouse, and remote inspections across the global production chain.
SIGHT leverages advanced data analytics and machine learning to assess risk and recommend predictive actions to drive continuous improvements. With a fully configurable platform, you can standardize and automate quality operations for increased visibility and collaboration across your supply chain. Shift your quality operations from reactive to preventive.
