Suggestions Regarding QCO – Association of Indian Plywood & Laminate Industries

1. Their should be passing marks for the samples based on point system.
2. If a sample scores 6 out of 10 it should be declared paas and such system should be developed online via BIS portal for a particular cml number for more transparency & visibility.

E.g Sample which gets pass in Length criteria gets 1, else 0.

Similarly in bonding 2, 1 or 0.

3. Relatively more important parameters like bonding could be given higher weightage.
4. It could be further classified that samples scoring Below 6 points are average, 6 to 8 points are good & 9-10 points are excellent, which we can mention on our product alongside cml number.
5. Plywood & panel products are not as essential or safety prone as food, medicine, cement, gas stove, helmet etc.
6. Our products are made through manual processes only, and source of major raw material is agro forestry only , so it cannot be 100% precise as above mentioned products and our customers too understand this well.
7. If our sample fails, we should be given an opportunity to improve our product and to access our performance quarterly based on point system as mentioned above.
8. Stop marking is quite prevalent in our trade; stop marking will shut down our factory and make our labour jobless which is not the purpose of the QCO.
9. Sometimes a dealer pick & chose a sample to complaint relatively old & inferior pieces of plywood out of thousands he has purchased which results into stop marking.
10. Also duplicacy & misuse of cml by dealers is quite prevalent in our trade, so BIS should ask proper invoice from dealer which matches with cml & other details unique to a factory.
11. Their should be provision to appeal against stop marking by creating something like BIS tribunal similar to gst tribunal.
12. Once a factory appeals in tribunal, all sort of orders & penalty gets hold instantly against some application fee at the tribunal. Factory now gets crucial time to explain its side, either this has to be followed before stop marking or after stop marking & all performance should be evaluated based on point system as explained above.
13. Factory should be able to despatch it’s product during sample scrutiny stage by mentioning its performance point report on plywood itself and keeps on improving for satisfaction & requirement of customers, and suitable protocols regarding this should be formulated by BIS.