Quick Tips for Conducting a Supplier Factory Audit
A supplier audit is an important tool for both the buyer and supplier. Here's how to make it count.
A supplier factory audit is a process for evaluating a potential or existing supplier's manufacturing facility to ensure that it meets the quality and safety standards, and overall technical capabilities required by your company.
The purpose of the audit is to assess the supplier's operations, processes, and practices, and identify any areas for improvement.
By conducting a supplier factory audit, you can gain valuable insights into the supplier's capabilities and performance, and make informed decisions about whether to work with them, or continue working with them on future projects.
Here are the general steps we recommend for performing a supplier factory audit:
1. Develop a checklist of items to evaluate.
Before you conduct the audit, you will need to develop a checklist of items that you will evaluate during the audit. This should include items such as the supplier's quality management system, safety practices, environmental policies, and working conditions.
The checklist should be tailored to your specific needs and requirements, and should include all the key areas that you want to assess. It is a good idea to standardize this checklist so it becomes a standard evaluation tool for objectively judging suppliers, and to gather input from all stakeholders in your company.
2. Schedule the audit with the supplier and provide them with a copy of the checklist.
Once you have developed the checklist, you will need to schedule the audit with the supplier and provide them with a copy of the checklist. This will give the supplier an opportunity to prepare for the audit and ensure that they are ready to provide the information and access you need.
It is important to give the supplier sufficient notice of the audit, so that they can arrange for any necessary personnel or resources to be available during the audit. Unannounced audits do have their purpose, but are generally not a good idea when evaluating a new supplier.
3. Conduct the audit.
On the day of the audit, you will need to visit the supplier's facility and conduct the audit. During the audit, you will need to evaluate each item on the checklist, using the data and information provided by the supplier and any other relevant sources. This may involve interviewing employees, observing production processes, and reviewing documentation and records.
As you conduct the audit, be sure to take notes and photos or video to document your findings. This helps share your findings with all the other stakeholders in your company who were not physically present during the audit.
It is very wise to have a stanardardized place to store the information from your audits. You could use a shared company network drive or file sharing service, or a more purpose-built solution such as Supplios's vendor database feature to help easily preserve and share this information.
4. Collect and analyze data.
As you conduct the audit, be sure to collect data and information from the supplier and any other relevant sources. This may include data on the supplier's operations, processes, and practices, as well as any relevant performance metrics or benchmarks. Get copies of the files they show you, their ISO certificates, and quality manual.
Once you have collected the data, you will need to analyze it to identify any issues or concerns, and assess the supplier's overall performance. Again, having a dedicated home for supplier documents in a purpose-built platform like Supplios can be a big help.
5. Prepare a report.
Once the audit is complete, you will need to prepare a report that summarizes your findings and recommendations.
Depending on the size and scale of your company, the report could be as simple as a well-written email, or a more thorough report in a specific company format, PPT, or similar. We recommend keeping it simple -- a simple report is better than no report.
The report should include an overview of the supplier's performance, as well as any specific issues or concerns that you identified during the audit. The report should also include recommendations for any actions that the supplier should take to address any issues or improve their performance.
The report should be shared with the supplier and any other relevant stakeholders within your company. If you find anything that requires improvement, it's important the supplier has a chance to respond, and prove they have corrected the issue.
If your company requires 8D reports, Supplier Improvement Plans, supplier scorecards, or similar tools, your audit will likely serve as inputs for those tools and systems.
Summary
Overall, performing a supplier factory audit is an important step in ensuring that your company's products are manufactured to the highest standards of quality and safety.
By following these steps, you can conduct a thorough and effective audit that will help you to identify any potential issues and work with the supplier to improve their performance.
And with a tool like Supplios, the work involved with performing and documenting supplier audits can be greatly reduced -- giving your team more time to focus on important tasks, not busy-work.