Sample approval is where most packaging programmes lose time, and they lose it on the buyer’s side. A sample arrives, nobody owns the decision, and three weeks later someone asks why the order has not gone in. Three fixes, none of them complicated.
One: name the approver
One person, named before the sample arrives. Not a committee – committees are why things sit. If several functions have an interest, they give input to the named person, who decides.
This sounds obvious and it is the single most effective change available.
Two: write the criteria down
What the sample has to do to pass, in terms you can check: dimensions within tolerance, survives this load, fits this equipment, matches this colour. Written before the sample arrives, so the decision is a check rather than a discussion.
Criteria written after arrival tend to be written to justify whatever the sample did. That is human and it is worth guarding against.
Three: set a deadline
Five working days is usually enough for a packaging sample. Put it in the diary when the sample ships. A deadline without an owner is not a deadline, which is why steps one and three have to go together.
If the deadline passes with no decision, the default should be stated: either approve or reject. Silence is the expensive outcome.
What to keep
The approved sample, labelled and stored. It is the reference for every future delivery, and it is what settles the argument about whether a batch matches. Plenty of operations keep one and plenty more wish they had.
Also keep the measurements and photographs from approval. Written records travel better than a box in a corner.
Two process points
Approve the specification, not just the sample. Approving a sample without recording what it is – thickness, resin, tolerances – leaves nothing to check the next delivery against.
Re-approve after any change. A supplier changing resin or tooling will often send a new sample unbidden. Insist on it, and re-run the criteria.
Who should own the decision
Whoever is accountable for the consequence of getting it wrong. If a crate that fails in cold storage stops a packing line, the person who owns that line approves. Procurement coordinates; it does not decide on performance.
Where the consequence is commercial rather than operational – a specification a customer will audit – then quality owns it. The principle is the same: the approver is whoever carries the failure.
What a good record contains
The date received, the date approved, the criteria, the result of each check, and the specification approved – thickness, resin, tolerances, colour reference. One page is enough, and it is the document you will want in eighteen months.
Keep the sample too. Photographs and measurements travel; a physical reference resolves disputes in a way paperwork does not.
And when to re-approve
After any supplier change to resin, tooling or process. After any change on your side to the application. And periodically – annually is reasonable – because tolerances drift and a sample approved three years ago may no longer describe what ships.
What we can do
We make PP crates for fruit and vegetables and will send samples with the specification stated so approval means something. Tell us your criteria and we will tell you whether our standard item meets them – including when it does not.