Mistakes Happen! This Product Rework Company Fixes Them

Today in the apparel, footwear, accessories, and much of the consumer goods sector, most products destined for U.S. stores and consumers are made abroad. Within these industry sectors, 99 percent of the time, they probably get it right. The product is desirable to consumers, and the product arrives on time. 

However, problems happen. When merchandise is en route or when it arrives, an issue may require immediate attention for possible corrections, repairs, or minor changes, such as new packaging or labels. At this point, an overseas factory or retailer or quality assurance professionals at importing companies, retailers, manufacturers, and distribution centers may turn to Quality Corrections & Inspections (QCI) for help.

Whatever the challenge, there are a variety of dispositions that retailers and factories consider when faced with potential problems: return the product to the manufacturer overseas for resolution, repair, and correction; defect the product in the U.S. and possibly send to landfill or solve the issue with a U.S. partner such as QCI.

A wide variety of products regularly arrive at QCI facilities to be repaired or corrected on a weekly basis. One week, the team may have production lines set up for label replacements on thousands of shirts, insole repairs for a women’s dress shoe brand, and replacing defective snaps on a large shipment of handbags that wouldn’t close properly. The next week, the team could be cleaning and sanitizing nylon travel bags, inspecting and sorting a large shipment of umbrellas separating first quality units from defects, or making sewing repairs on a shipment of men’s pants. 

In recent years, QCI has been working to increase awareness of their services to overseas factories. With QCI’s services, overseas entities can deal with product when the product arrives in the U.S., make corrections, or remediate products for sale through U.S. retailers. In most cases, the cost of QCI’s services are covered by overseas factories. With QCI’s support, companies can quickly mitigate supply chain disruptions.

 

Through the help of several local agencies in Nevada such as the SBA, the U.S. Commercial Service and the Nevada Governor’s Office of Economic Development, QCI applied for the U.S. Small Business Administration’s State Trade and Export Promotion (STEP) grant to reach overseas factories and build the relationships required for future opportunities.  

With a successful grant application, the QCI business development team has traveled abroad to key trade conferences and built hundreds of new relationships that will be important to the company’s future growth.

 

“The conference and meetings we attended were the first steps for us in increasing awareness of QCI’s services at overseas factories and to begin building long-term relationships with businesses overseas. With the new relationships we have built and the research we have done since our sales mission, we now have nearly 1,500 contacts that we did not have previously,” said Randy Burk, Executive Vice-President of QCI.   

“It’s a long-term process to gain new business from overseas markets, but the timeline is greatly reduced, and I feel we will have increased opportunities for success as a result of these efforts and the STEP program,” said Burk about the impact of being able to travel overseas through SBA's STEP program.