Point of Origin Quality Control in Morocco

Leading freight forwarding and logistics company, Davies Turner is launching the tried-and-tested point of origin quality control and compliance procedures developed for clients sourcing from Turkey, into a new operation for clients sourcing from Morocco.

The development has seen Davies Turner open a quality control inspection facility with its partner in Morocco for a large online fashion retailer, which sources product from the country, for shipment to fulfilment centres in the UK, the USA and mainland Europe.

Until recently, Davies Turner has provided in-country warehousing, consolidation and overland trailer services from Morocco to the client’s fulfilment centres in the UK and mainland Europe, as well as air and ocean freight services to the fulfilment centres in North America.

Quality control on the commodities contained in those shipments typically took place at the fulfilment centres once the trailers arrived at destination, with products not featuring on the retailer’s website as being available for order until they had cleared all quality control procedures after delivery to the fulfilment centres.

With the new system, those quality control procedures will take place upstream in Tangier. This means that any items from a consignment that are selected for a quality control check, which fail to meet the online retailer’s quality achievement rate, will achieve an earlier fault/concern capture from the consignment origin, enabling them to be returned to the supplier in country for reprocessing.
This will facilitate a reduction in the possibility of ‘sub standard’ product departing from the origin hub in Morocco, which improves freight and transportation costs, whilst also reducing ‘sub standard’ product arriving at the fulfilment centres overseas, improving space and labour costs at those centres.

Alan Williams, Director of Davies Turner & Co Ltd says: “Based on past experience in Turkey, this re-engineering of the management of these particular aspects of the online retailer’s supply chain should improve the overall transit times from receipt of consignments in Tangier to availability on the online retailer’s website for purchase. The point of origin quality control process takes place on the day after arrival of the shipments into the Tangier freight hub.

“The re-engineered service is underpinned by our award-winning P2D (purchase to delivery) software system. This is a system that has been designed in house by our IT and business analyst team, which provides an online portal that enables customers to monitor and manage shipments at SKU & Purchase Order (PO) level, delivering full visibility of products moving through their supply chain for all concerned.

“By re-engineering the part of the online retailer’s supply chain for which we are responsible we are improving visibility from origin, of product quality, appearance, composition, compliance and presentation. Through the application of the P2D online portal, we are improving reporting tools for the online retailer on supplier trends, performance, developments and successes. We are also improving lead times for the client from point of origin reception through to the the availability to sell, whilst reducing costs at various points in the supply chain.”