Container loading supervision quantity check

Container loading supervision is a service offered by most official third party inspection companies. It occurs at the very last stage of the production process, when all of the goods are produced, packed in the master cartons and ready to be delivered to the customer freight forwarder. What is the purpose of container loading supervision? How does the container loading supervision quantity check work?

Main objective of the Container loading supervision

For one man-day, the objective is to ensure the right goods and the correct quantity are ready to be loaded, the container is in good condition to host the goods, and the goods are properly loaded into the container. The three main points checked are:

• Container loading
• Loading information: including the quantity check
• Specifications, labeling and packaging

Quantity check during a container loading supervision

The normal process of a container loading quantity check includes:

• Check the loading list provided by the factory;
• Count the quantity of cartons ,at the warehouse, according to the loading list;
• Check the number of pieces in one carton
• Monitor the loading process, and double confirm the loaded quantity with the worker/leader for each container;

The number of cartons are counted by groups of cartons, it is a quick calculation method. When the supervision concerns one product only, the reliability of the result is high, however when there are various references, it becomes more complex. For instance, if 14 cartons of a red product are mixed together with the blue product’s cartons, the inspector using the counting per group method won’t be able to count them properly. This counting quick fix is the best solution to get a fast result, as time is limited. We have to bare in mind that container loading supervisions are done in 1 man-day only.

The only way to ensure that 100% of the quantity of goods are loaded is to screen each carton when it’s loaded into the container. This method would take significantly longer than one man-day and it requires the factory workers to take more time to load the goods, which is almost never possible. Overall this method is difficult to implement.

To guarantee the most effective and reliable quantity check during the container loading supervision, the factory’s  cooperation is essential. They should prepare the goods per lot if more than one reference is to be loaded into the same container.

And you: what are your solutions to perform a reliable quantity check during a container loading supervision?