Gildan Simplifies Complex Quality Control Processes with Inspectorio

The case studies mentioned herein were conducted using our earlier individual solutions: Inspectorio Sight (now Quality Risk Management), Inspectorio Rise (now Responsible Sourcing & Compliance), and Inspectorio Tracking (now Production Management). Inspectorio transitioned to a unified platform approach, enhancing and interconnecting these solutions under the Inspectorio Platform to better serve our customers. Click here to learn more about the Inspectorio Platform.

About the Company

Gildan is a leading apparel, underwear, and socks manufacturer known for their ethical and sustainable practices. With a strong global presence in over 60 markets, they work with vendors in Asia, Europe, and South America. An impressive 90% of their total revenue comes from products manufactured in their own factories.

Challenges

Prior to implementing Inspectorio, Gildan faced multiple challenges in their quality control processes, including:

• Manual management of vast inspection data, such as samples, defects, and factory performance calculations.
• High risk of human errors in data entry.
• Excessive reliance on emails to coordinate tasks and activities.
• Inability to track the real-time location of their quality control (QC) personnel.

Gildan also struggled with effective and efficient data storage. Their QCs stored inspection reports in a shared folder, and at the end of each week, they manually entered all the data into a spreadsheet for review. Data compilation proved tedious and time-consuming, taking up to two or three days that could have been spent on high-value tasks instead.

The client had reservations about third-party inspections unless specifically requested by the brand or retailer. They realized that these agencies often dispatched inspectors unfamiliar with the exact product being scrutinized, such as sending a furniture QC to inspect swimwear who lacked the knowledge of stitching requirements or cup balance.

Solution

To simplify the complex quality control processes, Adam Fong, Senior Manager of Quality and Technical Services at Gildan, looked for a quality control platform that could easily integrate with their existing processes. He compared different quality management platforms and finally chose Inspectorio for their operations.

“Inspectorio offered exactly what we needed — a platform that’s easy to use, quick, and reliable.”

Centralized communication

All quality control-related communication now happens on the Inspectorio platform, simplifying collaboration and dispute resolution. Suppliers are encouraged to share their comments directly on the platform, replacing the need for traditional email exchanges.

For instance, when a QC fail report is issued and an inspector’s decision appears unreasonable, or when arguments arise, suppliers no longer resort to phone calls or emails. They leave comments on the platform, allowing rapid dispute resolution and saving valuable time. The team at Gildan now logs in to the platform and spends less than 30 minutes addressing any issues – drastically reducing time spent on communication.

Real-time analytics

With Inspectorio’s real-time analytics, the client has insights into factory performance between monthly reports. They closely monitor and analyze the performance of factories in real-time to proactively identify any potential issues, deviations, or improvements needed in the manufacturing processes. Key performance indicators (KPIs), such as production efficiency, quality metrics, and safety compliance, are quickly tracked and measured.

Quality self-inspections

Prior to Inspectorio, Gildan did have factories conduct self-inspections where QC personnel were not available. However, this was challenging as the data and information manually entered by the factories were often inaccurate, leading to incorrect calculations for the clients. With Inspectorio’s workflow, this is no longer an issue. Factories get step-by-step guidance on conducting self-inspections – making the entire process simpler and more efficient.

Results

Since implementing Inspectorio, Gildan has increased their overall QC efficiency while reducing quality issues across their factories.

“In my old job, quality control was a total nightmare. Customer complaints meant combing through countless emails and figuring out who approved the order or released the shipment. It took us days and sometimes weeks just to trace the history of a single order. But with Inspectorio, I can easily look up the historical data of an order in no time. It’s amazing how much time it saves me; I no longer have to worry about the tedious process of retrieving old data!”

– Adam Fong, Senior Manager, Quality and Technical Services, Gildan

Automated reports in just a click

QCs no longer spend time manually writing reports; instead, they rely on Inspectorio’s automated workflow. They follow the required steps on the tablet and generate a comprehensive report with a simple click.

Data at fingertips for strategic sourcing decisions

Gildan uses the data collected through Inspectorio to understand factory performance and make better decisions for placing purchase orders.

No more manual data entry

Inspectorio eliminated the need for QCs to manually enter data into spreadsheets every week. With automatically generated reports, data from each inspection is automatically collected and stored in a secure cloud.

More time to focus on what matters

Inspectorio allows managers to allocate their time to more technical development, eliminating the need to dedicate time to administrative tasks. The platform automatically generates all the necessary data, analytics, and KPIs, enabling them to make well-informed decisions regarding quality control.