Factory audit by Dustin
What does a factory audit involve?
One element of Dustin’s sustainability strategy means that we also assume responsibility for responsible manufacturing. This means that when we select a supplier to manufacture products under our private label, we start by asking them to sign our code of conduct for suppliers. Once this has been done, we send our team to conduct regular audits and to ensure that the specified conditions are being met. The most important areas in our code of conduct are human rights and labour law, occupational health and safety, living and housing conditions, environmental protection, legal compliance and ethical business methods.
What happens during an audit?
Dustin has a team of specialist inspectors who travel to the factories and check around 200 items based on the code of conduct they have signed. Depending on the size of the factory and the number of inspectors available, an audit can take anything from one to five days. When the audit is complete, factory management and the Dustin team hold a final meeting and conduct a dialogue about the results. The meeting involves the inspectors reviewing all the conclusions one by one, as well as any problems that might have emerged. You can read more about the different kinds of problems and their complexity here. It is very important to note that Dustin does not end up by issuing a pass or a fail, but works with continuous improvements.
What is continuous improvement?
Continuous improvement means that we do not focus primarily on the number of problems a factory has, but on the collaboration and resolution of factory management to work and improve the conditions under which the factory is working.
What happens if a supplier is not willing to collaborate?
Unfortunately, we cannot check whether a supplier is willing to collaborate and address all the problems we might find during an audit. If this does happen, Dustin will regretfully phase out the supplier and end the relationship.
What happens after the audit has been completed?
After the audit has been completed, the supplier has two weeks to submit a Corrective Action Plan (CAP). When the Dustin team approves a CAP, they have 48 hours or 30, 60 or 90 days to present evidence that they have resolved the problems, depending on the degree of seriousness. Once all the problems have been resolved, the whole audit is signed off. The whole process takes around 120 days to complete. If there are critical problems, we usually arrange for a follow-up audit at least 150 days after the initial audit was conducted.