Factory audit report template

0

Cover and summary

The cover answers the buyer's question before anything else: can this factory make your order, on one of four verdicts — suitable, suitable with conditions, not suitable, or cannot conclude. It also carries the arrival and departure times, because how long the auditor was actually on site is a fact you are entitled to check.

1

Scope and the buyer's questions

An audit is only as useful as the questions it is pointed at. Section 1 records your product, the volume you plan to place, the things that must be true before you commit — numbered Q1 onward and answered one by one in section 9 — and any claim the factory has already made to you that you want checked on site.

2

Entity and site verification

Section 2 establishes that the company on the contract and the building the auditor stood in are related, which is the single check most often skipped and the one that costs the most when it is wrong. Every line separates what the factory stated from what was seen or independently verified.

3

Factory profile

Section 3 keeps two columns apart on purpose: what the factory said, with its source, and what the auditor saw. Most audit reports merge them, and once merged there is no way for a reader to tell which half of a number came from a filing cabinet and which from a conversation.

Anything marked as stated was provided by the factory and is not independently verified unless the report says it was.

4

Capability against your order

Section 4 reads capacity against your order rather than against the factory's largest customer. The calculation is shown, not asserted: machines multiplied by cycle time and hours, set beside what the factory claims, what it actually shipped last year and how loaded it is now, ending in your volume as a share of the number the auditor calculated.

5

Quality control

Section 5 asks whether quality control exists in practice, not whether it exists on an organisation chart. For each stage the report records the stated practice, whether records were actually seen and dated, and whether the person doing the checking reports to production or to somebody else.

Certificates are recorded, not relied upon: the audit does not conclude from a certificate that a management system is effective. Where the records and what happens on the floor do not match, that difference goes into section 7 as a finding.

6

Site conditions as observed

Section 6 records the state of the place as the auditor found it, with photographs. It is written as observation and nothing more, because a one-day capability audit is not the instrument for deciding whether a factory complies with a labour, safety or environmental standard.

This section is an observation record. It does not constitute a conformity judgement against any labour, safety or environmental standard.

7

Finding log

Section 7 collects everything that could change your decision, each with evidence attached and each translated into a risk to your order rather than left as a general remark about the factory. The severity definitions are fixed in advance so that severity is not decided by how the day felt.

• Critical: the licensed entity and the site do not match or the relationship cannot be proved; a core process is subcontracted and was not disclosed; there is no final inspection; the site audited is not a production site. Any critical finding caps the conclusion at cannot conclude.
• Major: capacity is not sufficient for your volume; key equipment is broken or missing; inspection happens without records; a certificate cannot be verified online.
• Minor: everything else observed.

The signature means the finding log was confirmed jointly on site. It does not mean the factory has agreed to correct anything.

8

Not seen and could not be confirmed

Section 8 lists what the audit did not establish, why, and what that does to the conclusion. It is the section other report formats tend not to have, and it is the one that decides whether the rest of the document can be trusted.

This section may not be empty. One day on site always leaves something uncovered, and a report that leaves this table blank is claiming a coverage it does not have.

9

Conclusion and recommendations

Section 9 answers the buyer's numbered questions one at a time, states the conditions attached to a conditional yes, and says what would trigger a re-audit later. Advice to the factory is separated from advice to the buyer, because they are different documents in effect even when they sit on the same page.

10

Photo index

Section 10 fixes what must be photographed rather than leaving it to the day. An overview set is mandatory on every audit, and an evidence set attaches to whatever was found. The index gives each photograph a number and a time, which is what lets a finding elsewhere in the report point at something specific.

• Overview set, always taken: factory gate and nameplate, the original business licence, the online verification screenshot, the map location, the office area, the sample room, an overview of each workshop, the warehouse, the inspection area, the fire exits.
• Evidence set: a close-up and a wide shot for every finding, machine nameplates, sample inspection records, calibration certificates, the production schedule, work in progress, and packaging and shipping marks.
• Faces are not photographed; where that cannot be avoided they are masked. Original EXIF data is kept on file, and GPS data is stripped from any version that leaves us.

11

Documents requested and provided

Section 11 records what was asked for and what came back, including the refusals. A factory that cannot produce a calibration certificate has told you something; so has one that produces every document on the list within an hour.