Vendor and factory audit preparation: consulting services

Audit-preparation consulting scope

We help clients prepare for vendor or factory assessments by major customers, often global businesses with their own supplier standards. The scope follows contractual or customer-specific criteria and can cover factory management, quality, environmental management, occupational health and safety, social responsibility, energy management and business integrity.

About Better Work factory assessments

Better Work assessments examine compliance with international labour standards and national labour legislation, including Vietnamese requirements for factories in Vietnam. An assessment establishes the factory's situation at a particular time.

The programme aims to reduce duplication of social-compliance audits and help factories and buyers direct more resources towards solutions, corrective action and capacity building.

Assessment areas

International labour standards

• Discrimination
• Forced labour
• Child labour
• Freedom of association and collective bargaining

National labour legislation

• Compensation
• Working time
• Contracts and human-resource management
• Occupational health and safety

Assessment and reporting arrangements described in the original article

The original article describes unannounced assessments conducted by two Better Work assessors, using worker, union and management interviews, document review and direct factory observation.

It describes reports being sent to the factory in approximately three to four weeks, followed by seven days for review and feedback before sharing with authorised buyers. These arrangements reflect the model described in the original article; the current programme's procedures govern an actual assessment.

The article refers to STAR as Better Work's information-management system for collecting, storing and analysing compliance and improvement data, and for enabling factory and buyer access to authorised reports. Confirm the current reporting platform and access process with Better Work.

ITVC Global's factory-audit preparation service

To help businesses prepare for social-compliance assessments, ITVC offers the following consulting activities:

• Review current factory conditions.
• Design a social-compliance management system against the applicable customer standard or code of conduct, for example requirements associated with Walmart, Costco, Tesco, Kroger, Schwarz Group, Walgreens, The Home Depot, Carrefour, Aldi or Amazon.
• Develop documentation.
• Address workplace and facility gaps.
• Put the management system into operation.
• Assess compliance.
• Implement improvements.
• Review the effectiveness of the system.

ITVC Global has supported businesses in establishing and applying social-compliance management systems and preparing for customer supplier audits. Assessment outcomes remain subject to the applicable criteria and the customer's or programme's assessment process.