Vendor Inspection Services

Read this article to see how inspection agencies perform vendor inspection. This article is a supplementary article for the Vendor Inspection article. 

Quality Vendor Inspection Services

This is referring to all activities that are done by a third party inspector regarding the quality part of work. The other tasks can be vendor quantity inspection, vendor packing inspection, vendor marking inspection and vendor loading inspection.

The third party inspector is normally assigned by the purchaser, and the scope of work also determined by the purchaser. The purchaser identifies which third party inspector in which inspection stage must attend to the vendor shop for witnessing a test or inspection.

These inspection points and other points, which only need to be reviewed are summarized in the vendor inspection and test plan article.

Notification for Vendor Inspection Services

Sometimes the value of an order is high, and the purchaser assigns a resident third party inspector to a vendor shop. In this case, we do not have any vendor inspection notification or invitation. The vendor supplies an office for facility to the third party inspector, and the inspector makes several visits per day to the shop and supervises and witnesses all tests.

But when the order is not so great and a resident inspector is not necessary, then it is agreed between the buyer and the vendor for an inspection notification.

Based on the international practice, the third party vendor inspection company would be notified a minimum of 5 working days in advance.

In the specified day, the third party inspector is attended in the vendor shop to witness the identified inspection or test.

Vendor Inspection Release Note

When the third party inspector has attended to the all identified inspections and tests and the results are satisfactory and all required quality control documents have been reviewed and endorsed, then the third party inspection agency would issue the vendor an inspection release note.

The release note form contains the equipment identification in detail, such as the proforma invoice number, purchase order number, packing list number, contract number, letter of credit number, etc. and states which specified equipment is released for shipment.

Then vendor can arrange with its shipping company for shipment of the equipment. But if the loading inspection is determined in the vendor inspection and test plan, the vendor needs to notify the third party inspection agency for witnessing the loading.

Responsibilities for Vendor Inspection Services

The responsibility of the vendor inspection depends on the inspection and test plan.  The responsibility of the Third Party Inspection Company is very different when the scope of inspection is Preshipment inspection or detail shop inspection.

Some purchasers try, by paying for 1 man-day inspection fee, to transfer all responsibility to the inspection agency, but this is not correct. The inspection is not eliminating the vendor responsibility to deliver equipment based on what was specified in the purchase order.

So if you have received non-conforming equipment to your site and the equipment was already inspected and you have the inspection certificate in your hand, before any judgment, check the scope, which you already specified for your third party inspection agency.

Then check and see if that non-conformity could have been identified with that scope of work? If yes, you may discuss this with your inspection agency and resolve the problem.

Vendor Site Work 

When the equipment is manufactured in the vendor shop, it then would be transported to the construction field. Some equipment would easily be installed in the site by construction site experts. Some examples are pressure vessels or heat exchangers because for this equipment there is no need for the vendor to attend to the site and supervise installation.

But we have lots of equipment for which the installation is a sophisticated process and needs to be installed using a specific procedure and it is necessary that the vendor supervisor attend to the site. An example of this is water tube boilers, gas turbines,etc.

There are lots of quality control documents that need to be processed, which is normally called a vendor site inspection document or vendor site quality control document.

Vendor Surveillance Inspection

This is different terminology, which is used for shop inspection or vendor inspection.

Vendor Inspection Services Versus Site Inspection

The site inspection refers to the activities which are done in the construction field, such inspections for process piping, storage tank, boiler assembly, heater assembly, etc., but the vendor inspection refers to the inspection activity that is done in the vendor shop.

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