Furniture OEM Quality Inspection: The Complete Pre-Shipment Checklist

The 5-Stage QC Process

Serious Chinese OEMs run quality control in five stages, not one. If a factory only offers a final inspection, that is a red flag on its own.

1. Incoming materials — fabric rolls, foam buns, zippers checked against spec
2. Cutting & sewing — pattern alignment, seam strength spot checks
3. Foam & frame assembly — density verification, frame joint torque
4. Pre-shipment inspection (PSI) — AQL random sampling on finished units
5. Container loading — carton condition, loading count, photo record

AQL Sampling: The Numbers

AQL 2.5 (general inspection level II) is the industry default for furniture. The lot fails when defects reach the reject number (Ac+1) in the table above — otherwise it passes.

The Compressed-Sofa-Specific Checklist

• Foam density — verify against the agreed spec (30D/40D/50D), not just feel
• Recovery test — open one sealed unit, measure at 1h/4h/24h
• Vacuum film integrity — pinholes and seal strength; a leaky pack ruins the whole shipment's selling point
• Crease & wrinkle check — after unboxing, 60 minutes to no visible crease
• Stitching — 4-5 stitches per inch, no skipped stitches on load-bearing seams
• Labels & compliance — care labels, fire safety tags (California TB117, UK FR) present
• Carton & pallet — export carton strength, 3-4 high stackability

Pro tip: pay for PSI at the factory (roughly $350) or use a third party like SGS, Bureau Veritas or Intertek. It is the cheapest insurance in furniture importing — one rejected container costs 20-40x more than an inspection.

About the Author

This guide was written by the YiChuHome Editorial Team — a Foshan-based OEM manufacturer with an in-house QC team that inspects every compressed sofa before it ships. We welcome third-party inspections and share our factory audit reports openly. Published: 2026-08-26 | Category: Quality Control | Request our QC documentation package.