What a DUPRO inspection actually catches

Most buyers know the acronyms. Fewer have thought about why the order of them matters.

A final random inspection, FRI, happens when the goods are finished and packed. It tells you whether what is in the boxes matches what you ordered. It is the last gate, and by the time you are standing at it, every unit has already been made.

A during-production inspection, DUPRO, happens while the line is still running, usually somewhere between 20 and 60 per cent complete. The difference is not thoroughness. It is what you can still do about what you find.

What gets caught early

The problems that show up at DUPRO are the ones that come from the process rather than the design: a colour drifting off the approved swatch as a batch of material runs out, a moulding flash that has crept in as a tool warms up, component parts arriving from a subcontractor slightly out of tolerance, print registration wandering on a long run.

None of these are visible in a pre-production sample, because the sample was made carefully, by hand, before any of it was under time pressure. All of them are cheap to correct at 30 per cent complete and expensive at 100 per cent.

What only an FRI can tell you

The final inspection is still the one that answers the questions the buyer actually gets asked. Is the packaging right. Is the barcode the one on the purchase order. Are the safety markings present and legible. Does the carton count match. Is the whole shipment consistent, rather than the first pallet.

Those are outcomes, and outcomes can only be checked once there is an outcome.

Why we run both on every order

Running only an FRI is cheaper per order and more expensive per problem. A defect found on a finished, packed, palletised order has three bad options: rework, which costs time you usually do not have; accept and discount, which costs margin; or reject, which costs the promotion.

A defect found mid-production usually has one option, which is to fix it and carry on.

That is the whole argument. It is not a clever one, but it is the reason our inspection schedule has two points in it rather than one, and it is the first thing worth asking any supplier who quotes you a price that looks unusually good.