Custom Sock Quality Control and AQL Inspection Service

Our Four-Stage Quality Process

1. Incoming yarn inspection - every spool tested for tensile strength, color match, and fiber composition against tech pack spec
2. In-line machine inspection - operators check first pair off each machine, then every 200th pair, against the approved sample
3. End-line manual inspection - 100% of pairs hand-inspected for knit defects, color uniformity, logo placement, and finishing quality
4. AQL 2.5 final inspection - statistical sample drawn from the finished bulk and inspected against ISO 2859-1 general level II standards before packaging

AQL 2.5 - What It Actually Means

AQL 2.5 (Acceptable Quality Limit at 2.5%) is the industry-standard sampling level for textile inspection. For a typical 5,000-pair sock order:

• Sample size: 200 pairs randomly drawn from the bulk
• Major defect acceptance: 10 (above this, lot is rejected)
• Minor defect acceptance: 14
• Critical defect acceptance: 0 (any critical defect rejects the lot)

Major defects include broken stitches, color mismatch, holes; minor defects include light loose threads, slight knit irregularity; critical defects include sharp objects in the sock, missing pair, mislabeled size.

Third-Party Inspection Coordination

For risk-averse buyers and first-time orders, we strongly recommend independent third-party inspection. We have working relationships with:

• SGS - $250-450 per inspection day; most established globally
• Bureau Veritas (BV) - similar pricing, strong in Europe
• Intertek - similar pricing, strong in USA retail
• TUV Rheinland - similar pricing, strong in Germany and EU
• AsiaInspection - $200-350 per day, lower-cost alternative

We schedule the inspector on your behalf, prepare the bulk for sampling, and provide complete remediation if any defect cluster is found.

Common Defect Categories We Catch

• Hole or run in knit fabric
• Color mismatch from approved sample (Delta-E > 1.5)
• Logo placement off-position by more than 5mm
• Loose thread or skipped stitch
• Size measurement out of tolerance (typically +/- 5%)
• Toe seam roughness or skip
• Spandex defect (sock falls down)
• Embroidery thread color mismatch
• Packaging defect (wrong tag, missing barcode)

Why ZheSock for QC and Inspection

• Sub-1.5% customer defect rate over 5 years across 50M+ pairs
• In-house full-time QC team of 18 inspectors
• Pre-arranged accounts with SGS, BV, Intertek, TUV, AsiaInspection
• OEKO-TEX, BSCI, ISO 9001 certified quality system
• Per-order CO and AQL inspection reports provided as standard documentation
• Defect-cluster remediation included at no extra charge

Ask for our standard QC documentation pack - we will send sample reports and certification copies within 24 hours.