Rejections and Rework: Who Pays, and How to Decide Before the Order

The goods arrive and something is wrong. What happens next is decided by a conversation that should have happened before the order: what counts as a defect, who decides, and who pays to put it right. Without that agreement, the argument is not about the piece — it is about two people describing the same object with different thresholds.

Judged against what, exactly

The only reference that survives a disagreement is a physical one, measured under consistent light, plus the written specification it was approved against. Photographs and memory fail in the same predictable way: the piece looks different on a screen, and everyone remembers the sample as better than it was. This is why a retained sample matters more than a detailed email — the drift mechanisms are only detectable against a reference that did not move.

Three verdicts, not two

Pass, rework, reject. The middle one is where most value is recovered and where most arguments start, so it needs a definition. Structural findings belong in reject or rework: a loose stone, a cracked joint, a clasp that does not close, a dimension that prevents assembly. Surface findings are the contested ones — polish marks, a slightly uneven edge, tone differences between pieces in a set. Sorting them into “must be corrected before sale” and “acceptable within the agreed range” is a decision, and it is cheaper to make it in writing than at the receiving table.

The borderline pieces

Every run contains pieces that are neither clearly good nor clearly bad. Nobody plans for them, and they generate the longest email threads. Two things close it: a stated acceptable range for the things that genuinely vary (finish level, natural stone characteristics, matched-pair tolerance), and an agreed way to resolve what falls outside it. Natural materials vary; so does hand finishing. Pretending otherwise is what turns a normal variation into a dispute.

Whose fault it actually is

Four root causes cover almost everything, and each has a different honest resolution. The specification was unclear — the piece matches what was written, and what was written was not what was meant. The sample was approved with the issue visible — it was there at approval and nobody raised it. The material moved — an alloy batch or a stone lot behaved differently, which is normal metallurgy and a matter of how much variation was agreed. Execution — the workshop simply did not do what it said it would.

The first three are shared, and pretending they are not is how a good supplier relationship ends over a small order. The fourth is the workshop's to fix. Sorting them requires records — a specification with a version number, an approved sample, and inspection notes — which is why those three documents are worth more than any clause in a contract.

What to agree before the run starts

Where inspection happens — first article, mid-run, pre-shipment, or all three. What method suits the piece: a straightforward form may need only a dimensional and visual check, while a stone-intensive or hinged design needs functional checks and stone-by-stone retention. How findings are reported and how fast. And who carries the cost of corrective work and return shipping when a batch does not meet what was agreed. What a pre-shipment check covers gives the concrete list.

One of these deserves its own line in the order: stone retention. It is the failure that reaches you from your customer rather than from your inspector, and the check that catches it has to happen after finishing, not before. Where stone loss comes from explains why the timing of that single check matters more than its thoroughness.

How we set it up

We would rather define the gates at quotation than at delivery: which inspection points the run passes through, what is measured, and what happens if a piece fails them. A first production piece is checked against the approved sample before the rest of the run proceeds, so a discrepancy is found while it is still cheap to correct. And we keep the records — specification version, sample reference, inspection notes — because the second order is where they pay for themselves.