12 most common quality control issues you can fix

Quality control (QC) issues are ranked as one of the top 10 headaches in any organization. Quality control in manufacturing alone can be challenging without proper communication and understanding of current protocols. We’ve listed down the 10 most common quality control issues and solutions to help your team overcome them.

What is quality control?

Quality control involves inspecting materials, checking processes, and testing and retesting products to deliver consistent results and maintain high-quality standards. In a nutshell, it's a series of tests and checks to help your business live up to what your promise to deliver.

What is the importance of quality control training?

Typically, the quality control process is a proactive approach to spotting problems internally before they reach the consumer. But it can also happen once a customer reports an issue and your quality control team seeks to resolve it. Various industries working on the front line benefit from quality control training in a number of ways:

• Manufacturing: trains manufacturing workers on key quality control procedures. Industrial quality control reduces the risk of malfunctioning equipment and eliminates bottlenecks in the manufacturing process. 
• Healthcare: checks to see that treatments, medicine, and equipment can be used safely and are working as expected. The industry is heavily regulated to make sure patients get the right medication, avoiding the consequences of a medical error. 
• Construction: teaches construction workers proper quality control measures to make sure the building complies with safety standards. This protects future occupants from structural failures and other safety hazards.
• Retail: helps workers spot defects, avoiding returns and refunds. QC training also makes sure output quality is consistent, establishing trust with customers and reinforcing the brand’s reliability. 
• Food industry: verifies if any of the food products coming out of the production line will be safe for consumption. Proper quality control protects consumers from food poisoning and allergic reactions.

What are the common quality issues you can fix?

A good quality control process is key to keeping customers satisfied, maintaining a good brand image and becoming more cost-effective. It also give your business a competitive edge while boosting employee morale as teams see that their efforts deliver great results.

Explore this list for an in-depth dive on quality issues examples and how to resolve them.

1. Poor understanding of the product

Problem: Most of the time, only the product team and the C-levels fully understand what the product is meant to do. Other workers mostly handle unassembled parts or raw materials and remain unaware of how it works. This issue leaves your workers vulnerable to production problems that could’ve been avoided if they understood the product.

Solution: Create an in-depth course about your product. This will help you mitigate production problems before and after they occur. It can also act as a reference when your workers have questions or concerns about the product. Some questions your course needs to answer would be: what’s your product, and what problem does it solve?

SC Training (formerly EdApp)’s beginner-friendly authoring tool can help you create your product course in the nick of time. With the authoring tool, you won’t have to start from a blank page. You can use the tool’s template library to create a beautiful and engaging course with no coding experience required.

2.  Product documentation

Problem: From product ideation to manufacturing, a lot of key information can be said during the process without documenting it. A product manager can say one thing, while the engineers push for another – all without either of them informing the other. 

Improper product documentation can cause products to have varying quality, manufacturing problems, and headaches for the customers. Since documentation helps with support, this can also make it harder on your customer support team since they won’t be fully equipped to address specific issues raised about your product.

Solution: Write down every single product detail and process from ideation to manufacturing. Prepare a bill of materials (BOM) that lists all the raw materials and components needed for the job to check availability and estimate costs. Laying this out early can effectively avoid delays in production.

Ensure that everyone in the decision-making process is aware of each decision and why the process is done in a certain way. Have a deck prepared that lists each step of the product documentation to better visualize everything.

If you want to go a step further, you can also turn your already existing documents into a great course for your teams. SC Training's AI Doc Transformer (coming soon) allows you to convert your documents into a beautiful course for your teams. Doing this will help them learn from the product documentation and apply it to future projects.

3. Lack of checklists

Problem: Having a checklist for quality control is a no-brainer. Yet, too many still rely heavily on remembering important details in their heads. This leaves your workers vulnerable to missing crucial processes and components, or failing to comply with government regulations. This quality control issue can cause miscommunication between your workers and delays in manufacturing.

Solution: A logistics worker can’t have the checklist of the engineer, so make sure everyone has a checklist that's aligned with their role. SafetyCulture has a wonderful quality control checklist template you can freely use for your teams.

4. Aligning each worker with the process

Problem: Product managers know the nitty-gritty details of the production process. Can you say the same for your warehouse workers? What about your logistics team? Not everyone in the product-making process is aligned with the step-by-step of what the manufacturing team does.

It’s important that your workers not only know what their specific tasks are but also understand how their work contributes to the bigger picture. It allows them to not only address risks and problems on the job, but also offer solutions to make your product better.

Solution: Regularly training your employees in the manufacturing process will solve this issue. Your team leads need to constantly align their team members with the current process and any changes that are made by them.

SC Training has great quality assurance training courses. One of the training programs is called quality control, which you can add your own process and alignment lessons to. This quality control course won’t only teach your learners about QC but also train and re-engage them with your processes.

You can also check out other similar safety training programs through their course library. Some of these include courses like NY forklift training courses, fire safety training courses, first aid training courses, and much more. 

5. Managing sub-suppliers

Problem: If you’re developing a product with several parts and materials, it’s unlikely that all of your components will be manufactured by the same plant. Many suppliers outsource some items that they can’t manufacture themselves to sub-suppliers. It’s likely that some (if not most) of your outsourced materials and parts come from these sub-suppliers.

While having subcontractors is common—even inevitable at times—quality is frequently compromised as a result. This is because having additional levels in the supply chain reduces transparency. You might not already be aware of quality control measures taken by your suppliers. What’s more with your sub-suppliers? 

Solution: Get in touch with your sub-suppliers. Most producers might get touchy about this subject, but you can give them some assurance with a non-compete agreement. In that way, you and your workers can keep in contact with their sub-suppliers and ensure quality control in manufacturing, without your actual producer losing sleep at night. 

6. Validating your process

Problem: Testing every product is impractical, prompting businesses to put their quality management process to the test. However, process validations will be ineffective if the product fits your design and quality criteria every time. A subjective process validation puts you at the risk of violating government rules and regulations. 

Solution: Identify all the quality control procedures that require validation. Ensure that each step follows government safety and health regulations. You can also ask consultants to take part in your process validation to add more objectivity to it. This is how you can solve this quality management issue.

7. Lack of logistical care

Problem: Another common quality control issue is how your logistics provider handles your products. A lot of accidents can happen from the moment your product leaves the warehouse until it gets delivered to your customer. A logistics worker can trip and break your product. Your packaging can get damaged while shipping.

Solution: Stress-test your packaging and your product before shipping. This will help you identify what your product needs to have before you hand it over to the logistics team. It’ll also help you determine your requirements for shipping, such as temperature-controlled storage, steel containers, wood containers, bubble wrap, etc. 

8. Shipping delays

Problem: Shipping delays happen for plenty of reasons. Your workers might not be working as fast as you want them to be. Parts can accidentally break during product assembly. Your factory could get closed down for a health and safety inspection. Delays can get even worse if your suppliers and subcontractors encounter problems of their own. 

Solution: Have some room for delay in your production timeline. While QC tries to address any problems before they happen, adding some wiggle room into your timeline can help you plan better with shipping delays. That way, you won’t have to worry about distributors or customers pulling out and losing revenue in the process.

9. Addressing complaints

Problem: You’ve checked all your boxes, but your customers are still unhappy with your product because they’re using it the wrong way. As such, your product might not be producing the kind of result that your customers expect. Other times, your product could be perfect but there are minor details that they wish it had. 

If your team doesn’t know how to address these complaints, they can endanger your organization’s reputation and customer relationship.

Solution: Have a customer support playbook ready before you deliver your products to clients. Double-check your product manual. Make sure to flag any common or major complaints so you can address them immediately and not lose revenue in the process.

10. Reworking the product

Problem: Factory rework can be difficult when working with goods with a ton of parts and materials. You might encounter new flaws due to additional handling and assembly. When you’re fixing faulty parts or adding newer components, it’ll almost certainly require the attention of several workers from different plants, which could introduce additional problems. 

Solution: Update your product documentation, checklists, and guidelines as you go through the rework process. Keeping everyone up to speed with product flaws and part replacements will help you address the additional problems faster.

11. Ignoring regular maintenance

Problem: Machines are meant to undergo regular and consistent maintenance. Otherwise, they'll suffer with wear and tear. This can lead to products failing to meet quality standards and unscheduled downtime that halts production. It can also lead to higher defect rates, shortened equipment lifespan, and increased safety risks.

Solution: Your team should take a proactive approach in equipment care and monitoring. Create a detailed schedule for preventative maintenance and other routine tasks and maximize the use of maintenance management software for automated reminders.

Proper machine calibration increases the consistency of your equipment's performance, reducing the chances of producing defects and saving up on costs. You should also invest in quality equipment from the onset and integrate tools like vibration temperature monitoring, and performance tracking to detect signs of equipment wear.

12. Inadequate training

Problem: When training isn't effective and continuous, your business will suffer from increased human errors brought by misuse of equipment and undetected defects. They'll also be resistant to change, with a higher tendency to ignore safety protocols. Poorly trained teams lack process understanding, putting themselves and others at risk.

Solution: Planning training can be hard and daunting. But with LMS tools like SC Training, the brunt of the work is taken off your hands. Use these eLearning platforms to create instant courses, send automated reminders, engage teams with gamification, and more. Tracking performance metrics is also important so you can adjust your program as you go.

Deliver high-quality products consistently with SC Training

A good quality control process is key to keeping customers satisfied, maintaining a good brand image, and becoming more cost-effective. It also gives your business a competitive edge while boosting employee morale as teams see that their efforts deliver great results.

SC Training’s quality control courses are packed with short, engaging lessons that can enhance work quality among your teams and improve productivity. Our content library also offers quality control checklists your team can use to evaluate and improve standard operating procedures (SOPs).