**Abstract**

The leather industry is one of the priority sectors that contribute to export income and economic development in the majority of African countries, in terms of creating job opportunities. Leather products need high care during manufacturing because their quality should never be compromised. Quality is a universal term used to evaluate the performance of a product or a service and the acceptance by the customer(s) in terms of customer satisfaction. As such, understanding quality concepts such as quality control (QC), quality standards, procedures, and documents related to leather goods and garment production in accordance with manufacturing company's policy is deemed useful within the context of this paper. Supervisors, quality controllers, and operators in leather products manufacturing firms need to know required quality parameters and associated control mechanisms so that defect-free products will reach the end users. In order to achieve this, quality-influencing parameters such as performance, reliability, durability, serviceability, esthetics, features, and conformance are measured so as to verify set quality levels. Furthermore, factors that affect the quality of leather goods and garments as well as methods of identifying and isolating common defects and faulty pieces especially in the finishing activities of leather production are included herein. Hence, this paper covers quality control aspects on leather goods observed within the garment manufacturing subsector.

**Keywords:** quality, quality control, leather goods and garment, defects

### **1. Introduction**

The leather sector is regarded in most African countries as a major economy driver that highly contributes to a country's economic growth by means of employment opportunities and foreign cash inflow. The leather sector includes tannery, footwear, leather gloves, and leather goods and garment subsectors. Leather by itself requires high care during the different phases of production, storage, and transportation. Hence, the issue of quality in leather manufacturing process is of paramount importance as most defects in leather and leather products are irreversible. Rework or correction of incurred damages during production of leather, leather goods, and garment leads to higher labor costs and sometimes to rejection of the products.

Therefore, the implementation of quality control (QC) concepts in every production step is associated with a valuable impact on the finished products so that defect-free products reach end users.

Most of the Ethiopian companies specializing in the leather sector prefer visual inspections and simpler physical testing methods to control product quality. This preference may work for the local market as the latter may not draw too much focus on quality aspects due to it being less aware for various quality dimensions. However, for penetrating and competing on an international level, special privileges such as African Growth Opportunity Act (AGOA) from importing countries or producing goods with the required quality and at a competitive price are required. Nonetheless, consistent with descriptive statistics results, econometric findings also reveal that exporting firms were found rather less efficient compared to those which are either powerless or have totally given up looking for the international market with respect to income and market sustainability. Once basic international standards are met and market access is established through various mechanisms including participation in trade fairs, the use of the internet, and buyer contacts, exporting companies have continued to benefit from the market due to the natural superiority of Ethiopian leather in terms of fineness, thickness, flexibility, strength, and compactness of texture, according to UNCTAD (2000) [1].

But this is not true for export markets. All leather and leather products-related quality standards need to be implemented which in turn includes, but may not be limited to, physical and/or chemical testing and inspections. In a perfectly competitive market setup consisting of a high number of buyers and sellers (also referred to as a thick market), price signals would reward high quality, and hence, producers and traders of substandard quality would either be driven out of the market or would be relegated to a distinct low-quality-oriented market [2].

This chapter provides a background on quality control aspects for the production of leather products that directly reach end users. It covers quality control aspects applicable to leather products and goods and the garment manufacturing subsector.

#### **1.1 Aims and objectives**

The objective of this chapter is to provide a background on quality control aspects required in the production of leather products. In doing so, this research work aims to address the significance of quality control and quality aspects in the leather products manufacturing subsector.

#### **2. Literature review**

Quality is an absolute term. Concepts of quality and quality control with regard to the manufacture of leather goods and garments need to be viewed in accordance with the policies of the relevant specialty industries. The outcome thereof in conjunction with the application of quality control concepts listed herein will serve as the basis for supervisors, team leaders, and even operators in those companies with advanced know-how to the parameters, check points, and control mechanisms so that defectfree products will reach end users.

Most Ethiopian leather and leather products manufacturing firms had implemented various quality-related improvement tools and systems including, ISO 9001:2018, Environmental Management Systems (EMS ISO 14001:2018, Occupational

### *Significance of "Quality Control" in Leather Goods and Garment Production DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.104494*

Health and Safety Management Systems ISO 45001:2018), and a plethora of other quality management systems (QMSs) in order to enhance their local and global competitions. For instance, (ELICO) Ethiopian Leather Industries Company PLC, Pittards Glove Manufacturing Factory PLC, Modern Zege leather products and footwear Industry PLC had implemented these systems [3].

Therefore, they will be able to acquire and maintain quality concepts, agreed quality standards and procedures, and introduce quality control/quality assurance (QA) to organizational staff/personnel. Furthermore, they will apply these parameters in leather goods and garment production, identify accompanied issues, and provide related documents to employees in accordance with the organization policy.

To implement quality standards, the basic conditions of the customer are (a) the purpose and (b) the selling price of the product or service.

These basic conditions can be resolved in to the following 10 detailed conditions:


#### **2.1 Concept of quality**

Quality is the totality of features and characteristics of a product or service that affect its ability to satisfy the specified or implied needs of a customer. Quality consistency requires from users to concentrate on the process rather than on the product alone. Quality gurus define quality as "conformance to requirement" and "fitness for use" [4]. Good quality will automatically result in productivity improvement. It is the author's view that the best policy should be to do the things right first time.

Quality helps determine a firm's success in a number of ways:


The term "Quality" can be measured aspects such as failure or reject rates, level of product returns, customer complaints, customer satisfaction, customer loyalty, evident from repeat purchases, or renewal rates and employee health and well-being.

#### **2.2 Quality parameters**

Quality is measured in a relative manner. It depends on how the user perceives or the way he/she get satisfied with that product/service. Once a product/service is accepted to customers, it can pull more new customers and may be produced/ delivered in greater numbers, affecting in turn costs that are reduced and sales which will be increased. But, as quality has no universal meaning, the way users perceive it varies. Some users may like the performance or the reliability, while others may be happy with esthetic features and so on. What is reliable for a user may not be true for another. Hence, quality is an important factor which customers look for in a product or service in order to be rewarded with total satisfaction. Some of the important quality factors/parameters that customer considers in a product or services as stated by some quality gurus are listed as follows.

#### *2.2.1 Dimensions (parameters) of quality*

**Performance:** it evaluates if the product does the intended (planed or proposed) job or if the service delivered meets intended objective. Potential costumers usually evaluate a product to determine if it will perform certain specific functions and how well it will do them. For example, the production of a document holder or a leather bag with multifunction pockets would fall within this category.

**Reliability**: it indicates a product's failure rate. Different products may need repair over their service life. The leather machineries should be also reliable so as to increase productivity, i.e. when leather garments are produced, greater attention ought to be placed during, e.g. the stitching procedure. As the needle is typically of a cutter edge type, sometimes it stitches the component by cutting the part. So, if proper stitching is not done, the product is either repaired or rejected.

**Durability:** it shows the duration that the product is expected to last for. This is the effective service life of the product that customer wants over a long period of time, e.g. a customer that orders a leather jacket may expect this to last for at least 5 years.

**Serviceability**: this parameter stands for how easy the product may be repaired. There are many industries where the customer's view of quality is directly influenced by how quickly and economically a repair or routine maintenance activity can be accomplished' in this case-study, dyeing or changing color of the leather jacket after a number of uses can be an example for this.

**Esthetics:** this dimension shows what the product looks like externally. This is the visual appeal of the product, often taking into account factors such as style, color, shape, packaging alternatives, and other sensory features.

*Significance of "Quality Control" in Leather Goods and Garment Production DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.104494*

**Features:** it means what features the product possesses. Usually, customers associate high quality with products that have added features (such as special color, design, handles, and decorations), which go beyond the basic performance of the competition.

**Conformance:** it is used to evaluate if the product or service conforms to the specification. This means, if it is developed based on a performance specification; will it actually perform as specified? If it is developed based on a design specification, does it possess all of the features defined?

**Perceived quality:** The product or service may possess adequate or even superior dimensions of quality but still fall victim to negative customer or public perceptions. As an example, a high-quality product may get the reputation for being low quality based on poor service by installation or field technicians. If the product is not installed or maintained properly, and fails as a result, the failure is often associated with the product's quality rather than the quality of the service it receives.

#### **2.3 Quality control and quality assurance**

Quality control (QC) is a procedure or a set of procedures intended to ensure that a manufactured product or performed service adheres to a defined set of quality criteria or meets the requirements of the client or customer. While quality assurance (QA) is defined as a procedure or set of procedures projected to ensure that a product or service under development (before the work is complete, as opposed to afterward) meets specified requirements. QA is sometimes expressed together with QC as a single expression. There is plenty of quality control types. The following are used in the leather-related production controls [5].

#### **Quality control of incoming material**:


#### Process control:

Process control (PC) can be defined as any activity that adds value to the product to be supplied or the service to be rendered. The term "process" in the leather garments manufacturing industry may include – but not be limited to – unit processes such as cutting, assembling and stitching, and finishing. According to the process control steps, the parameters for each process need to be identified first. For example, in assembling and stitching, the needle to be used, i.e. the needle number and needle point have an influence on the final product. Further, the thread used in bobbin (lower thread) and the sewing machine (top thread) also affects the quality of the final product.

Process control is carried out by the following steps:


**Figure 1** shows the intended process control.
