Buyers sometimes read AQL 2.5 as "2.5% of my order may be defective". It is not. AQL is the acceptance limit of a statistical sampling plan defined by ISO 2859-1, and the sample size depends on your lot size and inspection level.
Three things to confirm
- Inspection level – we use General Inspection Level II unless a buyer requests another.
- The defect classification agreed before production: critical, major, minor.
- Whether the report is inline, final random, or both, and who performed it.
Critical defects are normally set at zero tolerance: a broken needle fragment, a missing safety component, or an incorrect care label that could cause a recall. Major defects – a broken seam, shading between panels, a measurement outside tolerance – are what the 2.5 limit governs. Minor defects get a looser limit but still have to be documented.
Inline versus final
A final random inspection tells you whether to ship. It does not prevent the problem. Our inline checks happen at 15% and 60% of the sewing run, so a measurement drift on one line is caught while there is still time to re-cut. On a 5,000-piece order that is the difference between a rework and a rejected container.
Ask for the measurement sheet, not just the pass stamp. A pass without numbers is an opinion.
We issue the full inspection pack per order: size-set measurements, defect photos, the AQL sampling table used, and the name of the inspector. Third-party SGS or ITS inspection is welcome and can be booked against the same sealed sample.