Different Types of Factory Audits

These days, factory auditing is becoming pretty popular amongst the masses due to its plenty of benefits. More and more firms apprehend the benefits of factory auditing to make their business and manufacturing method more effective & transparent. Additionally, it not only helps your business process get in perfect shape and secure but also helps in minimizing different types of potential risks.

In this blog post, I have shared with you the three most common types of factory audit services that retailers may need. Here, you will also learn a bit about each variety of the auditing services and what manufacturing areas they concern.

1. Social Compliance Auditing Services

Auditing of such factories is sometimes called a moral and social audit or social responsibility audit. It refers to the supervision of the retailer’s delivery chain to verify the environmental requirements. The needs of social compliance set by the retailers frequently include different areas concerning:

• Fire exits
• Protective gear for workers
• Workers’ insurance
• Storage of hazardous materials

In addition to this, social compliance audits help retailers and brands to manage risks of social compliance that could impact the company’s finances. Negative publicity may come out of immoral activities or lousy working conditions. It can cause significant damage to a brand’s global reputation.

For example, targeted social audits have been conducted in technology-brand product manufacturing factories. In this program, there are two types of non-loyalty facilities: one-year non-formal and zero tolerance. The goals for a year’s noncompliance facility allow these three opportunities to correct their diversified issues and pass on the next auditing.

If any facility fails to audit due to child labor, compulsory labor, physical punishment, or conflict of interest, retailers will reject all the products made up of these benefits for the next three years.

2. Quality System Audit

It is the 2nd most common type of factory auditing. It is a type of factory audit that is used to understand if the supplier is providing quality products in a way that guarantees on-time delivery and optimum quality.

Mainly, the audit services of a quality system will be carried out in a specific time interval and include the evaluation of the quality systems, the management techniques, the maintenance of the machinery, and several other different factors. An installation that can pass this auditing service must have a valid internal system monitoring procedure. There are a plethora of rules and regulations for audits of quality systems, such as ISO 9000, AS9100, ISO 13485, or the QSR of the FDA.

The ISO 9000 standard refers to the quality management system for those types of institutions that can provide products and services. There are a total of 8 quality management principles which are defined in this system that include:

• Customer focus
• Leadership
• Involvement of people
• Process approach
• System approach to management
• Continual improvement
• Factual approach to decision making and
• Mutually beneficial supplier relationships

3. Security Audit

It is less common factory auditing services among these three types that a retailer may need. Certain retailers and brands need this type of auditing to comply with the regulations of the Customs and Trade Association Against Terrorism (C-TPAT) in the United States of America.

The main objective of this type of auditing service is to find out if the manufacturing site is sufficiently secure or not and what are the several terrorism risks associated with the site installation. The US Department of Customs and Border Protection UU Established C-TPAT, which focuses on protecting the supply chain, identifying security gaps, and implementing specific security measures and best practices related to the prevention of terrorism.

Conclusion

So, in this blog, we find three common types of quality auditing services that may be required by a retailer or brand, including:

• Social compliance audits – those that verify the labor practices and the working conditions
• Quality system audits – those that are finding for the quality management
• Security audits – those that are finding for terrorism risk and confirm compliance with the C-TPAT standards

I hope you liked the blog. If you have any suggestions, feel free to comment in the box.