Building your quality control from scratch is a tall order

From day one, Character planned to offer a wide range of customizable products — a lofty goal for a young brand. While their design team was confident in the brand’s visual appeal, they knew aesthetics alone wouldn’t cut it. So, they preemptively reached out to Factored Quality to ensure their goods could meet the highest standards of quality and function. 

Opportunities for quality improvement included: 

1. Defining QC standards — FQ helped Character create their standards from scratch by setting baseline requirements, unacceptable defects, etc. in a QC checklist. This ensures every unit of every product is professional-grade. 

2. Systematizing day-to-day ops — FQ created systems to organize and optimize the production and delivery of several assorted SKUs. 

3. Ensuring consistent assembly — FQ set up protocols for in-line inspections of Character’s toolsetsand project kits. Now, Mo explains, their ops team benefits from a consistent assembly process that ensures every product is complete. 

“Factored Quality’s parameters took away all of the decisions you’re faced with early in the production process. It was so helpful to start with FQ’s expertise and customize from there based on our needs.”

Factored Quality supports every step from product dev to QC reporting

Manufacturing will always be impacted by external factors. That’s why Character values the adaptability of Factored Quality’s team and services. So far, FQ has supported the brand’s ever-evolving needs through solutions like: 

1. Reliable facility inspections — As Character expands their product collection, they’ll be partnering with more manufacturers and warehouses. According to Mo, “FQ’s full inspections provide indispensable knowledge about the capabilities of a new factory.”
   
   
2. Product development — FQ has even helped Character develop new products that require “extra QC support and monitoring,” Mo tells us. “It’s hugely helpful to trust that FQ ensures we’re meeting the quality and specs intended by our designers.”
   
   
3. Transparent QC updates — Character regularly receives thorough QC reports from FQ, including photos, videos, and product specs. 

“We're really appreciative that we can flex and collaborate with Factored Quality on what we need as situations arise in real time.”

Factored Quality helps Character expand product offerings & sales channels

Since onboarding with Factored Quality over a year ago, Character has seen impressive results, including: 

• ~3x increase in production volume of best sellers due to increased product stability and scalability
• 20%+ increase in assortment this year due to confidence in product quality and development
• Helped remediate a new product introduction with $200,000 invested in design, tooling and first production run

FQ ultimately benefits Character’s bottom line by driving both cost efficiency and new lines of revenue. Inspectors ensure every product shipment is up to snuff before it ever leaves the factory, which slashes excess freight fees (i.e. sending an overseas shipment, only to open it up and find defects). As a result, the team at Character has the confidence to expand to new markets. Even if they don’t touch a shipment going straight from the factory floor to their retail partners, Mo affirms: 

“The Character team can be confident in the quality of our product offerings thanks to Factored Quality.” 

Factored Quality sets Character up to scale production with confidence

Looking forward, Character will be moving more of their production and assembly from their US warehouse to their factory partners in China. While that’s farther from home, Mo  and her team can rest easy because they have Factored Quality behind them to ensure reliable quality control and find new ways to optimize their production processes for the long haul. 

“Factored Quality has just always made the quality control process so easy. Working with them helps our brand build confidence in the fact that we’re sending the ideal product.”