**5. Conclusion and further work**

The leather sector's contribution is very high with respect to export incomes and economic development, especially on creating job opportunities. For instance, according to the Central Statistical Agency (CSA) of Ethiopia, export of leather and leather products, which was US \$23 million in 2013, reached US\$133 million in 2018. Hence, leather goods and garment to be exported need high care during all manufacturing stages in order to increase competitiveness in the global market.

This book chapter discussed quality control concepts and quality standards for leather goods and garment. In doing so, it highlighted applicable procedures and documents enabling supervisors, quality controllers, and operators in those companies to get detailed knowledge about quality parameters and control mechanisms so that defect-free products reach end users. Furthermore, it will allow readers to familiarize themselves with quality concepts in this sector. It is the author's view that this research work may prompt readers to confront themselves with quality control aspects and to research more about these aspects in this specialized manufacturing area.

Moreover, leather goods and garment quality parameters and factors that influence the quality of leather goods and garment were included. In addition to the earlier-mentioned ones, commonly occurring defects, methods of identifying and isolating faulty pieces, and some finishing types in leather products production were discussed.

Studying the application of QC/QA on the whole leather sector (leather processing, footwear industry, glove making, and other related subsectors) will be the next tasks of the researchers and book writers. This may include subsector-specific inspection and control mechanisms starting from designing, cutting, table work (preparation), sewing, inspection and testing, packing, and shipping that need to be further analyzed.

### **Acknowledgements**

The author would like to express his gratitude to his wife for her patience and assistance.

### **Further reading**

To get more practical explanation of quality aspects, readers are advised to read of the work of David Garvin (1988) – *Eight Dimensions of Quality*.

*Quality Control - An Anthology of Cases*
