In international business or local purchasing of military uniforms, besides the price, what people care most is the quality.

In this article, we will talk about the several quality problems you may meet in your purchasing.

First, is the design and appearance.

Whenever you buy clothes, we will first check the design, we like it or not directly decide we will buy it or not. But for military uniforms, the standards are always more strictly than common clothes because they are specially used for training or in war.

The function in the design part:

Firstly, the parts which could easily teared off are the places we need to check, which I mean is the joint, just like the crotch, the underarm, hip, the edge of the clap, etc. Those places if not with the reinforced design may meet an embarrassing moment when you’re doing some tactical action, for it may “pop” sometimes.

After the function of the design, there is the appearance issue of the design. The issues you may need concern are:

The part of the left and right part of the main front piece if is aligning or not; stitch density if match the requirement or not(this requirements often occurred in tender/country order; stitch if is straightly or not(if the factory uses the inexperienced sewing workers, you may find the stitch not in a line, but like a snake crawl, which is very ugly and not matches the standard for a military uniform); if is there any holes on the appearance of the uniform, which is occurred because of the old location way of the cut-parts such as for pocket, or because of the old machine; etc.

Above are the main problems that may happen when you checking a uniform design. But what’s more, if what you deal with is a tender order, you also will find the document will ask your QC to check more things than this.

The more problems may are:

The tolerance problem on each part. Which is always the headache problem to Chinese military uniform factory.

Different design or losing some parts of the design details from the document requirement with the finished uniform, this always happen because the technical manager of the uniform factory is not a full understanding of the document requirements, or their factory not with the machine to deal with such craft or they want to reduce the time to finish the uniform by their “smart” way, etc. So it would be best if you were more careful when checking the sample and clearly telling them what you exactly want them to finish on the uniform.

You may need to pay attention to the uniform’s dirty point or the tailor’s chalk marks on the uniform.

After the design, is the accessories part.

As for there are always many accessories in one suit, we can’t ignore the function of it either.

The main problems likely happen in the button, zipper, and Velcro, etc.

The button may, with the problem not stitched tight, so it will drop whenever you may even don’t realize after being used several times.

For another part of the button is the location.

Some factories may not match the button and buttonhole’s location in the definite location, so when you want to tie the button up, you may find it very hard to fix them together well.

Then is the zipper.

Some uniform use button to close the top fly when some other use the zipper, zipper issue is a little different from the button, the issue for zipper could be can’t slip smoothly or losing of the zipper head or stitched one side of the zipper in clothes so can’t pull up totally.

Besides those two, the uniform always uses the Velcro, which may with the color tide issue or not stick any more when washing several times.

We should choose the Velcro which in Nylon material with dense loop and hook and waterproof function, will keep it could be used in a longer time than the common one. Also, we need to check if the two sides of the Velcro is aligning or not, or the function on this place which original could be stick tightly, by the problem of this, the function will be cut into half.

As important as the above three are the labels, the material, and if stitching carefully will decide if the label could work as expect or not.

As the label needs to be washed when the uniforms are washed, so if the print on it or the embroider on it, not in good craft dealing way, you may see the letter on it once then will never “meet” them again anymore.

Then is the stitching for the label.

If the workflow or the technical manager did not pay attention to the stitching size on the edge of the label, the letter you may not see them even when you first time to get the uniform, because they are “swallow” by the collar or the waist belt, they are stitching into the place where they are shouldn’t belong to.

Which we can’t forget is the string which always used at the bottom of the leg of the trousers.

They always used in BDU design, if not stitch in the correct way, the string is quite easy to be stitched with the fabric together so you can never tighten it up.

Beyond the issues above, if your order is for tender, you had better ask for the test report for those accessories.

The different standard accessories will be in different materials and durable time, also different prices. But in this case, it may make you wait for longer for the order for those accessories.

The part after the accessories is the fabric.

Common clothes we always will touch the fabric to confirm if is cotton or the soft one as what we want, then buy; but for military uniform, the fabric always needs to be durable or with some special function. At least with strictly color fastness and tear strength standard.

The fabric problem on uniforms not so many as the design part. Because professional military uniform manufacturers need to deal with those problems before it is using in the uniform. But some we still need to pay attention to, some they can’t control or will not think those are problems, other is they may not even see it.

The most we need concern about is the color problem itself.

In tender order, there always with the fabric detail requirements such as the color fastness standard for different sides: solar light, sweat, Abrasion, etc. Also the color chorma.

Then is the tear strength, the weaving way, the strength of the weft and warp weaving, etc.

Some other problems you may meet on the fabric part may is the knot on the fabric. The tender order will see it as a defect point.

That problem is starting from weaving, so if you want to avoid it, check the finished fabric, or ask the uniform factory to pay attention to not use such part of the fabric on the uniform, become more necessary. 

Then the last problem and also as important as the first is that besides the problem on the color itself, is the color difference on each set of uniform or the different batch of uniform.

This problem always happens when in a big order, which the dyeing factory can’t finish all the dyeing work in once, there will be the dye lot chromatism on the different batch, so if some parts of the uniform are made from the first finished batch of dyeing fabric. Some other parts are using the second finished one; there will be a color irregularity problem on the finish uniform.

Even the problem not happen on one set of uniforms, it can be happening on a different batch of uniforms. So when the order delivered to the government, you may find there are two different apparently irregularity color problems when your soldiers wear them when they are doing the training, which not expected to happen. So the control of the dyelot chromatism is another very important point when dealing with the tender order.

The last part of this article is for the QC problem in a uniform order, and the main point on this side will be the packing issue.

Well, you may not concern much about this part in your order before, but this also could with the QC problem in the whole process.

The military uniform packing is as normal as other clothing packing work, after ironing then put into the bag. But even in this simple step, there may several problems.

First is the step after ironing.

If the military uniform not stewing till the steam to dry completely, after the long-distance of the shipping, it may cause mildew on the uniform surface, Which the factory may not realize if they don’t meet this problem before, or packing line workers are not experienced enough.

Then is the packing itself.

If only chasing for the packing speed(because many factories in China do not attach importance to the last step of the work, hiring the day laborers for the packing work, their salary are counted by packing number), there may come with the packing wrong problems. What is often will result in mix sizes or short of packing(short of top or trousers).

The last one for the packing is the layers of the carton.

International business always needs to ship the goods in a long-distance through several times transport, this problem especially important when your order could only by LCL, for if the quality of the carton or the layers of the carton not strong enough for the labors in the port to “fail” on the ground, when the uniforms to your warehouse, you will find some of them are out of the carton, or some of them directly is disappeared (Because some uniform “slip out” of the carton on the way to your warehouse since the carton is broken on the way).

But if using 7 layers of the carton, the weight of the total cost on shipping will add as well. So choose a good quality carton to let your military uniform factory pack is also a crucial thing that needs to be considering. In this case, some buyers will ask the factory to add the nylon bag to cover the carton or add packing stripe on the outside surface.

Above are my experience in this line for you to reference, maybe you will use the third part QC company to do those work for you, but I think to know those will make you more professional when deal with the international business on the military uniform order. Right?

Welcome to leave a comment to let me know what you would like to know more about this line and I will write more useful articles for you. Thank you.

You may also be interested in:

7 steps to making the military uniform sample by Chinese factory/How long does a military uniform factory need to make a sample in China.

The 3 most important factors to choose military uniform manufacturers/suppliers.