What does visual assessment in standardised conditions mean?

To ensure consistency and agreement, visual assessment should be performed under the same lighting conditions at each stage of the supply chain. When viewing under the same lighting conditions, you are creating ‘standardised assessment conditions’. These conditions will improve consistency of results and ultimately mean more accurate decisions and better business outcomes.

Visual assessment is simply viewing a product, object or sample.

The purpose of visual assessment is to make a judgement on how a product appears. Whether this is to ensure a sample garment looks as intended prior to mass manufacture or to assess particulate contamination during pharmaceutical manufacturing, the fundamentals stay the same. There is an observer and there is an object or sample.

However, the results of visual assessment can vary immensely. If you are viewing a fabric sample for a sofa at your office window during the winter, the colour and appearance will differ greatly from what a manufacturer in Piedmont, Italy is seeing at their window and a buyer at a New York department store will see under point of sale lighting, due to the different properties of the light. This will cause differences of opinion, which can delay production times at best and at worst result in loss of sales and penalties for suppliers.

VeriVide is a trusted provider of standardised assessment conditions for a number of industries and have developed and maintained standards for over 50 years.