A day after sending notice to all manufacturers in India regarding quality issues in body coveralls, HLL Lifecare Limited – a Government of India enterprise – has rolled out testing protocols for the coverall manufacturers.
The fresh notice sent by HLL to the industry says that the testing would be done in two parts: (1) Testing of coveralls at HLL warehouses for available stocks, (2) Pre-dispatch inspection and testing at the site of manufacturing unit.
Testing of all the existing stocks of PPE coveralls as received from the various manufacturers presently available at HLL warehouses will be done. This is applicable to all manufacturers except those whose samples have passed in the earlier tests.
The existing stocks at HLL warehouses will be tested in lot size of 10,000 coveralls in each lot. The stock below 10,000 will be counted as one lot. Five samples from each manufacturer’s stock will be selected randomly and inspected.
The approval will be given if all five samples get green signal in the inspection process.
It’s worth noting here that inspection criteria will be fabric and seam testing (synthetic blood penetration test). In case of fabric failure or seam failure or both, the suppliers will have to take back the stocks and will have to replace with same quantity of the lot at their own cost.
“The rejected quantity will have to be destroyed by the manufacturers at their own cost,” informs HLL.
Further, if manufacturers refuse to replace the stock within 3 weeks from the date of intimation, they would be served a written warning by HLL and given 1 week’s time to comply, failing which the manufacturer would be blacklisted for 1 year.
As far as pre-dispatch inspection and testing at the site of manufacturing unit is concerned, HLL would be employing third party inspection agency (TPIA) to carry out inspection which will constitute inspection of the packing, labeling, taping, etc.
TPIA will collect samples from the manufacturing facility in a batch size of 5,000 units or multiples of 5,000. Each batch has to be given batch number printed on coverall which will be non-removable. From each batch, 10 boxes will be selected randomly and one sample from each box will be taken out.
Out of these 10 samples, 5 samples will be sent to the approved labs for testing and 5 samples will be retained with TPIA. These samples will be tested for synthetic blood penetration test for fabric and seam. All five samples tested are required to pass the test.
The information of TPIA and starting date of inspection has not yet been disclosed by HLL.
These protocols have been approved by MoHFW, India. The one part of the latest mail sent by HLL to the suppliers reads “Presently, we are in process of testing all the existing stocks received at our warehouse and once it is completed we shall communicate regarding the resumption of supplies which will be in line with the pre-dispatched inspection mentioned in the attached protocol.”
It’s worth mentioning here that HLL decided to stop taking any further supply of body coveralls from suppliers across India from 3 June, citing quality issues.
