Most factory audit checklists are long lists of yes-or-no questions. They are easy to fill in and tell you very little, because a factory that has been audited before knows the answer to every one. What separates a useful audit from a form is knowing what a good answer looks like — and checking it against something the factory did not prepare.
This is the checklist we work from, organised the way the visit runs. It is written for a buyer deciding whether to place a first order. If your customer requires a named social-compliance audit, that is a different exercise run by firms approved under the scheme, and nothing here replaces it.
Before the visit: ask for these in writing
- The business licence, showing the registered Chinese name and the unified social credit code.
- An equipment list with quantities.
- An organisation chart with headcount by department.
- The process flow for your product, marking any step done outside the building.
- Every certificate the supplier has quoted, with its number.
- The last three months' output for the line your product would run on.
The point of asking in advance is not the documents. It is that everything you are sent becomes a claim you can check on the day. A supplier who will not put a headcount in writing has told you something before you have booked a ticket.
On the floor: seven areas
| Area | Look at | A good answer | Should stop you |
|---|---|---|---|
| Site and legal | Whether the name on the gate, the licence and the invoice match | One entity, one address, all three agree | A different company name on the gate or on the bank details |
| Production | Whether the process for your product is physically present | Every step in the flow chart is in the building, or the outside steps are named | Finished goods, but no machines that could have made them |
| Capacity | Machines and shifts, counted by you | Your order is a share of output the factory can state and you can roughly reproduce | Nobody can say what last month's output was |
| Incoming materials | Whether material is checked on arrival and stored so it can be traced | Labelled lots and an inspection record per delivery | Material accepted on the supplier's word |
| In-process control | Whether a work instruction and an approved sample are at the station | Operators can show you the standard they work to | The standard exists only in the office |
| Final inspection | Who releases goods, against what, and where rejects go | A separate rejects area with something in it | No rejects at all — nobody makes zero defects |
| Measuring and testing | Whether gauges and test equipment are calibrated and actually used | Calibration labels in date; operators can use the equipment | Test equipment under a dust cover |
Three checks no form asks for
- Follow one order end to end. Pick a recent order — not one the factory chooses — and ask for its purchase order, incoming inspection record, in-process record, final inspection report and packing list. A factory whose system is real can produce the chain in minutes. One that reconstructs records for visitors cannot do it for an order you picked.
- Go to the rejects. What is in the rejects area tells you what the process actually gets wrong, which is exactly what the sales team will not.
- Count something. Machines, operators on the line, cartons produced in the hour you are standing there. Then compare with the equipment list and the capacity you were sent. Small differences are normal. Large ones mean the paperwork describes a different factory.
Certificates: check the number, not the frame
A certificate on a wall proves that a frame was bought. Check each one against its issuer: the certificate number, the name of the certified company, the address, the scope and the expiry date. For ISO 9001 and other accredited management-system certificates, IAF CertSearch is a public database where a certificate can be looked up; testing and inspection companies run their own verification pages for the reports they issue.
The most common problem is not forgery. It is a genuine certificate that belongs to a different legal entity, or covers a scope that does not include your product.
Why a score is the wrong output
Many audit reports end in a percentage. It is a comfortable number and a poor basis for a decision, because it averages things that should not be averaged: a factory can score 85% with tidy paperwork and a line that cannot hold your tolerance.
Sort findings into three groups instead — those that stop the order, those that must be fixed before production, and those to watch — and make the decision on the first group alone.
What a passed audit does not cover
An audit tells you what a factory can do. It says nothing about what it will do with your order three months later. Production that drifts from the approved sample, a substituted material, a quietly subcontracted batch — none of these is visible on audit day. They are the job of inspection, and the two are bought for different reasons: see when to inspect a China order and, for how a pass or fail is actually decided, AQL sampling explained.
Doing it yourself, or sending someone
If you are in China anyway and the product is simple, this checklist and a day on site will tell you most of what you need. It gets harder when the records are in Chinese, when the process is one you have not seen before, or when the factory is a flight away from the last one. We run this as a standalone factory audit for $320, with a dated report, whether or not the order goes through us.
Before any visit, it is worth an hour confirming from records that the company is what it says. How to verify a Chinese supplier covers that step.
