A factory audit report should let you make a decision without visiting. If it reads like a brochure, it has failed. The test is simple: could you tell, from the report alone, whether you would place an order with this factory tomorrow?
The sections to insist on
- Identity: registered name, licence numbers, ownership, the address of the site visited, and the date and time of the visit.
- Photos and video of the actual production line, raw-material storage, finished-goods storage, packing area and loading bay, taken on the day.
- Capacity: how many lines, shifts and workers, and the realistic monthly output for your product, with the factory's own figures and the auditor's view of them.
- Quality control: what is tested, by whom, with what equipment, and whether records exist and were shown.
- Documentation: export history, certificates held, and whether the certificates were seen in the original.
- Working conditions and housekeeping, scored, with a note on anything that would concern your customers.
- A verdict in plain words: go, fix these things first, or avoid, with the reasons.
Red flags in a report
No photos of the line with your product on it. A visit that was announced weeks in advance. Scores with no notes. A verdict that avoids a verdict. Any of these means the auditor was shown what the factory wanted shown, or did not want to say what they saw.