Incoming Inspection

IQC(IncommingQuality Control) stands for Incoming Quality Inspection, which refers to the quality confirmation and verification of purchased raw materials, components, or products. It involves inspecting the quality through sampling when suppliers send raw materials or components, and ultimately determining whether the batch of products should be accepted or returned.

IQC is the first level of quality control for enterprise products before production. Its purpose is to move quality control forward, discover quality problems at the forefront, reduce quality costs, and achieve effective control. If non-conforming products are put into the process, it will result in the process or final product being non-conforming, causing huge losses. IQC not only affects the quality of the company's final products, but also impacts various direct or indirect costs.

In the manufacturing industry, the four main items that have a direct impact on product quality are usually design, incoming materials, process, and storage and transportation. Generally speaking, design accounts for 25%, incoming materials account for 50%, process accounts for 20%, and storage and transportation account for 1% to 5%. In summary, incoming material inspection plays an overwhelming role in the quality of the company's products, so it is necessary to elevate incoming material quality control to a strategic position.

The main job is incoming material inspection, while IQC inspection can be briefly described as confirming all or the main characteristics of outsourced or purchased materials with reference to the relevant standards of the material; Or the activity of confirming whether it meets the usage requirements.

IQC also needs to track and handle quality issues discovered during the inspection process, as well as major material quality issues reported by production and market feedback, and establish preventive measures within IQC

Collect quality data during the process of receiving and inspecting incoming materials, and provide feedback to relevant departments in the form of weekly and monthly reports as the basis for supplier's incoming material quality control and management.

Participate in the optimization of relevant processes in logistics control, and provide suggestions and opinions on the optimization of processes related to material inspection in logistics.

IQC is a window for companies to deal with suppliers and also a gateway to control supplier quality. The progress of IQC work directly affects the quality cost of our products and our impression among suppliers.

Sampling inspection is a statistical probability risk that may result in defective products being missed and placed on the production line, or defective products being rejected, indirectly causing losses to the company. Therefore, when sampling, it is important to ensure that the sample reflects the quality status of the parent material as much as possible. In the sampling plan, according to current international or national standards, the risk rate can be controlled below 5%. However, in the specific sampling process, the randomness of the population may not be sufficient due to personal preferences, so special attention should be paid to the rigor of the sampling method.

IQC personnel often come into contact with suppliers, creating an "emotional atmosphere" that can easily lead to subjective consciousness during inspection, resulting in differences in the criteria for judging suppliers.

Influenced by personal emotions, those who are in a good mood may take it more seriously, and their testing and judgment may be more cautious; Being in a bad mood can be a quick fix.

Due to the influence of the personality of the inspectors, people who are impatient are prone to subjective judgments, so it is important to pay attention to objectivity and fairness. If unqualified batches are put into the process and raw material problems occur, the first responsibility to be pursued is the IQC personnel.

During inspection, there may be conflicts in terms of quality, time, cost, and efficiency. For example, if raw materials need to be urgently put online and inspection reveals a "minor issue" that cannot be accepted according to the original standards, the company's procurement strategy is to use lower priced materials. Although there may be differences from the original quality target, it is still possible to accept them.

Use labels to distinguish between products to be inspected, defective products, qualified products, etc., preferably with colored labels to indicate differentiation.

A certain company's production department did discover quality issues in the incoming materials and complained to the IQC (Incoming Quality Control) department. If you are the person in charge of the IQC department, how should you handle it?The following are different ways and ideas of netizens for learning reference only. Feel free to leave a message for communication.

(Passerby Jia)Firstly, you need to establish a good relationship with the production engineer. Secondly, you need to analyze the reasons for the incoming material defects, mainly the monitoring loopholes in IQC. As for quality, a problem can only occur once. Additionally, you cannot let the production line complain about your routine problems. During the incoming material inspection, there will always be defective products flowing to the production line. The most important thing is to look at the defect rate. That is to say, you need to set a proportion for the production line. If it exceeds the proportion, it will be dealt with. If it does not exceed the proportion, do not pay attention to his complaints. There are three key points for factory quality: basis, evidence, and confidence.

(Passerby Yi)Support your viewpoint. I have personal experience. Initially, I was transferred as an ISO specialist to become a quality manager. Although I understand the work operation, I am not familiar with the products. At the beginning of managing quality, I only understood the standard framework and lacked experience in product quality management.The personnel who originally managed quality were transferred to manage production, and we became competitors. However, I had to learn from them again.At the beginning, they mocked and bullied me, so I had to endure it. Later on, I started studying on-site every day and hardly ever sat down to rest. I just wanted to catch my breath and believe that I can do it well. I personally handle all the products from receiving materials to shipping, and I am so tired that I have lost weight. At the end of the year, the boss's wife gave me three red envelopes, which was not a waste of money.

I don't care about quality now, I just want to maintain the normal operation of the ISO system. If our company's incoming materials are defective and flow to the production line, the production line will issue a "Process Quality Exception Form" to the IQC team for processing. Specifically, it is an internal quality improvement requirement, and the IQC team must provide a root cause analysis and relevant improvement measures.

(Passerby Bing)First, let's see what the defect is and whether it affects assembly. If it doesn't affect, communicate well with the production line. If the production line rejects, it should be confirmed with the engineer to see if it can be relaxed. If you still refuse, discuss a solution with the supplier and ensure that the production line operates normally. At the same time, it is also necessary to check if the secondary defect is listed in the IQC inspection items. If not, add this item to the inspection checklist.

(Passerby Ding)Just follow the process of your factory. As your daily work, is it still necessary to discuss this?

(Passerby Wu)Our company first issues a process abnormal quality order with IPQC, and then production engineering personnel confirm the cause analysis. If it is determined to be a problem with the raw materials, it will be transferred to IQC, who will issue a supplier quality abnormal order to notify the supplier for handling. This processing needs to be combined with inventory and production line demand, including many methods such as selection, return, etc.

(Passerby Ji)After the workshop reported that the raw materials were defective, they were required to provide the defect ratio, which was then confirmed by IQC through sampling. If they meet the acceptance standards, the workshop will continue to use them. If they do not meet the standards, they will be returned to the warehouse and treated as non-conforming products.

(Passerby Geng)For production line complaints, the first step now is to confirm whether it is really an abnormal incoming material. If it is, we will first bring the inspector who inspected the material to the site to confirm and let them know that it was their mistake. Next time, they will pay attention to control it, and then deal with the temporary production plan to achieve the target rate. We will return this defective material and replace it with another manufacturer or a different batch from the same manufacturer to confirm if there is the same problem. If there is a problem, we will change the supplier. If there is no problem, we will use it. The materials returned to the warehouse will be returned to the supplier and provide a physical picture and an exception form for the supplier to rectify. The workshop will issue an exception form to the external inspector. If the photo is OK, they usually do not open it. If they open it, then we will wait for the supplier's reply with a rectification report to the workshop Let the supplier confirm on site, let the supplier, workshop process Just confirm together with the production engineer. If the supplier does not come, then the workshop will be arranged to select or rework, and the related costs will be borne by the supplier. There will also be a quality assurance agreement for punishment, in order to reduce costs for departmental quality. ha-ha

(Passerby Xin)Firstly, I feel that this issue needs to consider the amount of materials required for our company's current production capacity, in order to determine our position in supplier sales. This way, we can establish a reasonable production line loss rate. Because if we don't use a lot of materials or for various reasons, if you set too high a price, the supplier won't pay attention to you. Therefore, the original defect rate needs to be determined first and reflected in the quality agreement.

Next, it depends on the feedback from the production line. In principle, if the original loss rate exceeds this limit (sometimes it is also stipulated that there may be three consecutive occurrences of the same problem or five cumulative occurrences of the same problem), then we need to analyze whether our inspection plan needs to be changed. The current inspection plan can no longer guarantee normal production on the assembly line, but the most important thing is to feedback the problem to the supplier and ask them to rectify it.

If the original defect rate is not exceeded, then simply return the defective products to the supplier and replace them with qualified ones. If appropriate, suggest the supplier to make improvements. Reduce the defect rate.

The most taboo thing is to question IQC every day no matter how many defects occur in the workshop. This is very unreasonable, and not to mention that sampling inspection cannot guarantee 100% batch qualification. Even if it is a full inspection, factors such as visual fatigue are really difficult to guarantee. If it is a batch defect and the issue is within the inspection items, then it is clearly the responsibility of IQC.

(Passerby Ren)I think we should first let IPQC handle it, take the defective products off the production line, and then let IQC handle the follow-up issues.

(Passerby Gui)It depends on the situation. If it does not exceed the standard, the production line will follow the normal process to return the defective products to the raw material for processing.

If it exceeds the standard, contact the supplier to select or rework. Suppliers cannot come, it depends on how both parties agree. The production line or IQC will handle these tasks, and the costs will be passed on to the suppliers.

We usually choose by ourselves when we enter the factory, because we are our own brand and the materials are of multiple varieties and small batches, so it is not realistic to seek compensation.

(Passerby A)There are many types of complaints, one of which can be resolved by IQC. IQC can negotiate with the materials on the production line to return the materials according to the material damage. If the rate of complaints about defective materials exceeds a certain ratio, IQC will notify SQE to confirm and ask SQE to notify the supplier. If there are minor complaints about material issues on our production line, IQC can solve them on their own. However, if there are many abnormalities in the materials, they must inform SQE for confirmation before notifying the supplier.

(Passerby B)Our company has encountered a problem where we first fine inspectors, then fine engineers, and then instruct SQE engineers to fine suppliers. I believe the final outcome will be our company's own downfall.

There are many English abbreviations involved in quality management. How to distinguish their meanings? I hope this article can help you!

QC：Quality Control，Quality control refers to the personnel involved in product quality inspection, analysis, improvement, and non-conforming product control after identifying quality issues. Generally includes:

QC focuses on products, not systems, which is its main difference from QA. Its purpose is consistent with QA, both of which are to "meet or exceed customer requirements

QA：Quality Assurance，Quality assurance is achieved by establishing and maintaining a quality management system to ensure that product quality is problem free. Generally, it includes personnel in the fields of system engineering, SQE (Supplier Quality Engineer), CTS (Customer Technical Service Personnel), 6sigma engineers, calibration and management of measuring instruments, etc. QA not only needs to know where the problem lies, but also how to formulate solutions to these problems and how to prevent them in the future. QC needs to know how to control just when there is a problem, but not necessarily why it needs to be controlled in this way.

To give an inappropriate analogy, QC is a police officer, QA is a judge. QC only needs to arrest those who violate the law, and cannot prevent others 

from committing crimes or ultimately convicting them. Judges, on the other hand, formulate laws to prevent crimes and issue judgments and punishments 

based on the law.

To summarize, QC mainly involves quality inspection activities after the fact, and errors are allowed by default. It is expected to discover and select errors. 

QA is mainly a pre quality assurance activity that focuses on prevention and aims to reduce the probability of errors occurring.

QC is the operational technique and activity adopted to ensure that products meet quality requirements. It includes inspection, correction, and feedback. 

For example, if QC discovers defective products during inspection, it will remove them and then provide feedback to relevant departments for improvement 

measures. Therefore, the control scope of QC is mainly within the factory, with the aim of preventing the input, transfer, and delivery of non-conforming 

products, ensuring that products meet quality requirements, and only qualified products can be delivered to customers.

QA is to provide trust to meet customer requirements, even if the customer is confident that the product you provide can meet their requirements.

Therefore, it is necessary to leave evidence from market research and subsequent reviews of customer requirements, product development, order acceptance 

and material procurement, incoming inspection, production process control and shipment, after-sales service, and other stages to prove that every step of the 

factory's activities is carried out according to customer requirements.

The purpose of QA is not to ensure product quality, ensuring product quality is the task of QC. QA mainly provides assurance, so it is necessary to manage 

the entire process from understanding customer requirements to after-sales service. This requires enterprises to establish a quality control system, develop 

corresponding documents to standardize the activities of each process, and leave evidence of activity implementation in order to provide trust.

Therefore, the main difference between QC and QA is:The former is to ensure that product quality meets regulations, while the latter is to establish a system and ensure that it operates as required to provide internal and external trust. At the same time, QC and QA have similarities: both QC and QA need to be validated. For example, QC tests products according to standards to verify whether the products meet the specified requirements, QA conducts internal audits to verify whether the system operation meets the standard requirements, and QA conducts shipment audits and reliability testing to verify whether the products have undergone various activities according to regulations and can meet the specified requirements, in order to ensure that the products delivered by the factory are qualified and comply with relevant regulations.

The most important responsibility of QC is to monitor the finished products (mainly including raw materials, in-process goods, finish goods, and in-process audit), with a focus on detecting defects through Sample Inspection.

QC can be divided into IPQC and IQC,

IPQC：IN PROCESS QUALITY CONTROL 
IQC: IN COME QUALITY CONTROL 

Its responsibilities are as follows：

Responsibilities of IPQC： 

1. Inspect the products during the production process and keep records

2. Fill in the inspection report based on the inspection records

3. Propose improvement measures for the problems found during inspection

IQC Responsibilities:

1. Strictly inspect raw materials according to inspection standards

2. Fill in the inspection record form truthfully

3. Maintenance and upkeep of testing equipment

4. Reporting of abnormal raw materials

5. Identification of raw materials

6. Responsible for signing and receiving inspection reports from warehouse material personnel

7. Responsible for re inspecting the stored materials in the warehouse for material quality issues complained about on the production line

QA is quality supervision/monitoring 

1. Responsible for the overall work of the department, organizing the implementation of GMP related quality management regulations, and timely providing 

product quality opinions and improvement suggestions to enterprise leaders.

2. Ensure that our company's products are produced in compliance with GMP requirements.

3. Responsible for supervising, implementing, correcting, and preventing quality related personnel and events throughout the entire enterprise.

4. Instructions that are conducive to production configuration shall be reviewed and approved by designated personnel in the department after being reviewed 

and signed.

5. Review and approve the inspection results.

6. Review the pilot plan and conclusions for new product development and process improvement.

7. Review and submit relevant technical and quality written materials to the drug supervision and management department.

8. Review the batch records and draw a conclusion on whether the finished product has left the factory.

9. Responsible for organizing the development of quality standards and other documents for raw materials and packaging materials.

10. Review the procedures for handling non-conforming products.

11. To meet the needs of quality management, organize the drafting of new technical standards or discuss the revision of technical standards in conjunction 

with relevant departments.

12. Review the production process specifications, batch production records, and batch packaging records of each product, and decide on the distribution of 

finished products.

13. Handle product quality issues reported by users, assign personnel or personally follow up with users. Convene an internal meeting, work with relevant 

departments to study and improve quality issues, and report the complaint situation and handling results in writing to the company's responsible person.

14. Regularly (at least once a year) conduct comprehensive GMP inspections of the enterprise in conjunction with the Chief Engineer's Office and the 

Production Department, and promptly report the inspection results to the responsible person of the enterprise.