Factory Audit

Quality Management Assessments that Extend Beyond the Product

What Product Inspection Won’t Tell You

A product inspection is how you know if some batch of items meets your quality requirements. That’s useful – but it only tells you about that sequence, at that moment. What it can’t tell you is whether the underlying systems at the factory are able to deliver quality order after order. That’s another question, and a different type of examination.

That’s exactly the questions ACE SURE’s factory audit services are meant to solve. A factory audit is about processes, procedures and quality management systems as they determine what a factory is able to produce in its basic form, not finished items. It’s one of the most powerful quality control technologies accessible to importers who want to make informed, evidence-based supplier decisions — not just respond to problems after they’ve happened.

Our factory audits are benchmarked to the ISO 9001 quality management system – the internationally accepted standard for systematic quality management – and performed by a qualified QMS audit team specifically trained in this type of audit.

The Seven ISO 9001 Principles - What We Assess

The ISO 9001 framework is constructed on 7 quality management principles that describe what true, sustainable quality management looks like. We review each supplier against all seven as part of our factory audit services:

Customer Focus

Does the factory really know what buyers want? Are specifications documented correctly, communicated effectively within the business and adhered to consistently in production? A lack of customer attention at the systems level is one of the most common core causes of quality problems that keep coming back.

Leadership

Is there actual quality leadership at management level – leaders who actively promote a quality culture, set clear quality targets and hold their teams accountable? As with any quality management services this only works if leadership is truly committed.

People Engagement

Are the personnel well trained and are their quality duties clearly defined? If quality accountability in a plant stops at the management level, there will always be issues with consistency on the production floor.

Process Approach

Are the manufacturing and quality control methods documented, systematically followed and periodically reviewed? This is the difference between a factory that produces quality all the time, and one that runs on human effort and luck.

Improvement

Does the plant have good systems in place to identify, investigate and permanently correct quality problems? If you don’t, you’ll get the same issues repeated on multiple orders.

Evidence Based Decision Making

Quality decisions driven by data and recorded evidence or presumption and commercial pressure? This idea is fundamental to any meaningful QA QC services programme.

Relationship Management

Is the manufacturer responsible for managing its own supply chain and does it apply the correct quality and compliance standards to its own suppliers and subcontractors?

Why Importers Should Use Factory Audit Services

The benefits of having a factory audit are real and substantial. Our third party inspection team has witnessed first-hand what occurs when buyers miss this step and the pattern is consistent: buyers who engage with unaudited suppliers spend more time handling quality problems than buyers who took the time to check their vendors properly up front.

Here’s what a factory audit guards against:

Working with vendors that cannot produce to your expectations consistently
Discovering – after a large order commitment – that a factory’s quality systems are totally informal
Repeat orders with quality issues that should have been foreseen with good systems assessment
Reputational and compliance risk from vendors with concealed competency gaps or subcontracting behavior

The following is the Audit Report of Ace Sure

You will get a complete audit report after the factory audit with an overall quality score and audit result, detailed findings against each ISO 9001 principle, photographic evidence taken at the facility, a clear identification of all non-conformances and specific corrective action recommendations for each issue identified.

Our factory audit industrial inspection services lead to improvements in supplier results and a reduction in repeat quality problems on later orders according to our clients. The first investment in understanding your supplier’s systems rapidly pays for itself many times over.

Factory Audits and Product Inspections – Best When Combined

Factory audits and product inspections are complimentary tools. The audit will show you how capable the production systems are to produce consistent quality. The inspection checks if a certain order fulfilled your standards. Both are vital to buyers making large sourcing commitments – and Ace Sure’s quality assurance services deliver both as part of an integrated plan.