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Defect check sheet
A defect check sheet is a form for counting defects where they are found, by type and by when, with tally marks made as each defect turns up. The defect types are agreed and defined before counting starts, so everyone counts the same way and the counts are ready to rank. It is one of the seven basic quality tools and usually the first one a team uses on a defect problem, because the Pareto chart, the defect rate and the search for causes all start from its counts. Page 1 of the PDF is the tally: up to ten defect types and other, a column per day for a week, and rows for total defects, units inspected, defective units and defects per 100 units. Page 2 has a defect location sheet to mark where on the part each defect is found, a table of defect definitions, a Pareto summary for the week and the formulas. The Excel version takes up to 15 defect types and other by day, and works out the totals, defects per 100 units, % defective and first pass yield for each day and the week, checks the counts against the units inspected, and ranks the defect types in a Pareto chart.
Free to use: print it, copy it and edit it for your team. Enter your name and work email once to download.
When to use it
When to use a defect check sheet
- At an inspection point, final check or end of line, to see which defects happen most and when.
- At the start of a quality problem, to collect a week or two of facts before choosing what to work on.
- Before and after a fix, with the same definitions, to show whether the defect really went down.
- To feed a Pareto chart, a defect rate on the tier board or a first pass yield figure.
How to fill it in
- 1
Agree and define the defect types
List the defects you expect, give each a code, and write on page 2 what each looks like and where the limit is, with a sample or a photo. Leave a row for other.
- 2
Fill in the header
Part, process, check point, inspection method and whether every part or a sample is checked. Use the same check point every day, or the days cannot be compared.
- 3
Tally as you find them
A stroke for each defect, in its row and the day's column, with every fifth stroke closing the four before it. Count at the time, not from memory at the end of the shift.
- 4
Write the units inspected and defective units every day
Without them a count is just a number. A unit can have more than one defect, so defects can be more than defective units but never fewer.
- 5
Mark where the defects are
On the location sheet, write each defect's code where it was found on the part. Clusters point at a cause: a gate, a clamp, a corner, a handling point.
- 6
Rank the week and look at the days
Rank the types in the Pareto summary, then look along each row. A defect that appears on one day only points to something that changed that day.
A filled-in example
Illustrative, not a benchmarkA week of end-of-line checks on an injection molded housing (illustrative), the same numbers as the Excel worked example.
- 960 housings inspected each day, Monday to Friday: 4,800 in all.
- 136 defects on 118 defective housings: 136 ÷ 4,800 × 100 = 2.83 defects per 100 units, 118 ÷ 4,800 = 2.46% defective, and a first pass yield at this check of 97.5%.
- Short shot 46 and flash 38: 84 of 136, 62% of all defects. Both come from how the mold fills, so they go to the process engineer together.
- Wrong color: 6, all of them on Wednesday. The week's total would hide that; by day it points to the material lot or color change made that day.
The Pareto puts short shot and flash first. The team checks the fill settings and vents on the press for those and the Wednesday color change procedure for the wrong color, then counts again the next week with the same definitions to see whether the numbers fall.
Common mistakes
Counting without definitions
If one inspector calls a mark a scratch and another lets it pass, the counts measure the inspectors, not the process. Define each defect with a limit and a sample.
No units inspected
Twenty defects on a day you made 200 is not the same as twenty on a day you made 2,000. Always record what was inspected.
A growing other row
When other becomes one of the biggest rows, the defect list is wrong. Split it into the defects it really holds.
Looking only at the week's total
The day and the location carry most of the clues. A defect concentrated on one day or one spot of the part is much easier to trace.
Download the template
Free to use: print it, copy it and edit it for your team. Enter your name and work email once to download.
Run this template in LeanSuite
In LeanSuite defects are captured from the floor as they happen, ranked in the QA Matrix with an AA, A, B or C priority and a cost, traced to their root cause with 5 Whys, 4M1D or a fishbone, and any defect can start a Kaizen or a CAPA.
In the lean glossary
Free tools
Guides
- Manufacturing Defects: Types, Root Causes, and Prevention
- Pareto Analysis in Manufacturing: Applying the 80/20 Rule to Problem Solving
- First Pass Yield: Definition, Calculation, and Improvement
- Total Quality Management: Principles and Manufacturing Application
- Why Defects Still Reach Customers Despite Quality Control
FAQ
Defect check sheet: common questions
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