Quality Control — What Happens Between the Kiln and the Container

What we test, and what the figure means

Shade and calibre sorting, and why it decides projects

Tiles come out of a kiln with small variations in colour and in fired dimension. No manufacturer eliminates this; what separates a good factory from a poor one is how rigorously the output is sorted afterwards.

Every tile is graded into a shade batch and a calibre — its precise fired size — and both codes are printed on the carton. Tiles within one shade and calibre will lay as a uniform floor. Tiles from two different batches will not, and the difference is far more obvious on a finished floor than it is holding two tiles side by side in a warehouse.

For a single room this is a minor issue: buy all the cartons at once, check the codes match, done. For a project it is the whole ball game. A four-hundred-unit development tiled from three different batches will have buyers standing in two apartments asking why the floors do not match — and by then the only answers are an argument or a re-tile.

The way we handle this for project buyers is to produce the entire scheme quantity, including the attic stock, in one firing run, and hold it for release against the delivery programme. It requires knowing the total up front, which makes it a procurement decision as much as a manufacturing one.

How we work with developers · Commercial project supply

Checks before a container is sealed

• Visual inspection against the approved sample — the shade that was signed off is the shade that ships.
• Shade and calibre verification — carton codes checked against the production batch across the whole consignment, not spot-checked.
• Dimensional check — sampled from the run and measured for size, squareness and flatness.
• Carton count and packing list reconciliation — against the invoice, so what arrives matches what was paid for.
• Pallet condition and wrapping — the largest single cause of transit breakage is poor palletising, not rough handling.
• Container loading plan — weight distributed and pallets braced so the load cannot shift at sea.

Frequently asked questions