QTMBGby Quantum Branding

Standards

05 / 06

What a supplier has to satisfy before we put your name on it.

Published, so that a factory knows what it is being asked and a client knows what was checked.

A certificate framed on a meeting-room wall is not evidence. A transaction certificate tracing the specific lot you bought is.

Most compliance failures in small-brand supply chains are not fraud. They are a valid certificate for a different facility, an audit that expired two quarters ago, or an organic claim that was true of the yarn and stopped being provable at the dye house. The paperwork looks right until somebody follows it back one step.

So we check it before shortlisting rather than during sampling, we read the corrective action plan and not only the audit score, and where a claim will reach the consumer we verify it at transaction level for the lot in question. If a factory cannot produce that, the claim comes off the label — it does not go on and get argued about later.

A long chain of punched jacquard cards laced together, hanging in folds.
Pl. XIIIPunched jacquard cards, laced in sequence. The pattern, made machine-readable.

01

Material and chemical

We do not put a brand's name on goods whose chemistry cannot be evidenced. Certification is verified at transaction-certificate level where the claim is on the label, not at the level of a factory's marketing deck.

OEKO-TEX STANDARD 100
Tested for harmful substances. Required on any skin-contact article.
GOTS
Global Organic Textile Standard. Required where an organic claim reaches the consumer.
OCS
Organic Content Standard, where content is claimed without full GOTS processing.
GRS / RCS
Global Recycled and Recycled Claim Standards, for recycled content claims.
bluesign / ZDHC MRSL
Preferred for dye houses and wet processing.

02

Social and labour

A valid third-party social audit is a precondition of shortlisting, not a nice-to-have discovered later. We read the corrective action plan, not only the score.

amfori BSCI
Audit report and corrective action plan reviewed before shortlisting.
SEDEX / SMETA
Four-pillar preferred. Two-pillar accepted with a stated remediation path.
WRAP
Common and well understood across Vietnam and South Asia.
SA8000
Where a client's own policy requires certification rather than audit.
Higg FEM / FSLM
Requested where available, for facility-level environmental and labour data.

03

Quality and inspection

Inspection is to a published standard so that a pass or a fail is not a matter of opinion. Gates are agreed in the manufacturing agreement before cutting begins.

ISO 2859-1
Sampling procedures for inspection by attributes. All inspections sampled under it.
AQL 2.5 / 4.0
2.5 major, 4.0 minor as standard. Tightened by agreement for premium price points.
Pre-production sample
Signed off before bulk fabric is cut. Non-negotiable.
Inline inspection
During the run, at agreed completion points.
Final inspection
At full carton availability, before shipment is released.
ISO 9001
Preferred at factory level for quality management systems.

04

Commercial and legal

Terms are set once, in writing, as a package. Price without a minimum, a payment term and an Incoterm attached is not a price.

Incoterms 2020
FOB or FCA as standard. EXW and DDP available on request.
Payment terms
Typically 30% deposit against order, 70% against a copy bill of lading. L/C at sight where a factory requires it.
Mutual NDA
Executed before any technical package is released to a third party.
Intellectual property
Designs, patterns, graded specifications and artwork remain the client's property throughout.
Tooling and moulds
Titled to the client, and released on request.
Supplier handover
The factory relationship transfers to the client at the end of the engagement.

Inspection protocol

Four gates, agreed in the manufacturing agreement.

Written into the agreement before cutting starts, so a pass or a fail is a matter of record rather than a negotiation at the point of shipment.

  1. 01

    Fabric on arrival

    Bulk fabric inspected at the garment factory on receipt, not on despatch from the mill: shade against the approved lab dip, width, weight, hand, and a four-point check for faults.

  2. 02

    Pre-production sample

    Made on the bulk fabric, on the production line, to the graded specification. Measured at every point of measure and signed before a single roll is cut. This gate does not move.

  3. 03

    Inline

    During the run, at agreed completion points. Early enough that a systemic construction fault can still be corrected inside the calendar rather than reworked after it.

  4. 04

    Final

    At full carton availability, sampled under ISO 2859-1 to AQL 2.5 major / 4.0 minor, including packing, labelling, care and content, and country-of-origin marking. Shipment is released only against a pass.

Limits

What this does not cover.

We are not a testing laboratory and not a certification body. We review, verify and commission — we do not issue certificates, and we do not audit factories ourselves. Third-party audits and laboratory tests are carried out by accredited bodies, and the reports are passed to you in full.

Regulated categories requiring specific statutory testing — children's sleepwear flammability, personal protective equipment, medical textiles — need a specialist testing programme scoped at the outset. We will say so at the first call rather than at the first inspection.

Three turned wooden pirns standing against a dark ground, one stamped Made in England.
Pl. XPirns, Queen Street Mill, Lancashire. One still carries its origin stamp.

For suppliers

A factory reading this: send the file.

Registration, current audit report and corrective action plan, certification with scope and validity, machinery list, capacity and typical minimums. If it fits something we are working on, you will hear back.

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