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Production Site Assessments
Assessments should show you not only a true picture of what is happening but also why and how it could improve.
In order to reduce business risk, ‘do the right thing’ and be ahead of the game, companies need to ensure that the assessments they carry out in their supply chain are effective at both finding the issues that are present and also enabling managers to make the necessary improvements to tackle the issues found. If issues remain unfound or unresolved the problems are still present and this poses a risk to the workers and to the company’s reputation. Impactt’s assessments take a different approach to most standard audits:
Finding the issues:
- Worker-centric – prioritising the testimony of workers through using worker interviews, since this is often the only way that serious and less visible issues are uncovered, issues that may not be seen on a walk around, shown in documents or admitted by management
- Forensic – skilled in getting to the bottom of issues present and understanding the true position. This often includes getting past the fake documentation which is increasingly common. We often uncover issues that many other auditors fail to identify.
- Diagnostic – not only identifying the issues but understanding why they are occurring
Supporting change:
- We aim to make progress with the factory towards genuine and sustained change for workers, rather than simply providing a list of problems.
- Business case – discussing with the managers why it is in their business interests to make improvements
- Solutions not problems – suggesting practical actions and solutions
- Realistic improvements – setting realistic targets for gradual improvements
- Our assessments are sometimes followed up with consultancy or training for the factories to support them further in making improvements.
Impactt assessments involve an opening meeting, physical examination of the production site, interviews with management and with workers, document review and closing meeting.
Impactt has experience in conducting assessments for a wide range of product types, from packaging to stone quarries, apples to glasses, jeans to jelly beans. We conduct assessments all over the world including: Bangladesh, Brazil, Bulgaria, China, Dubai, India, Indonesia, Latvia, Malaysia, Romania, Turkey, UK and Vietnam. We have Impactt Associates who carry out assessments and other work in Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Laos, US and Vietnam. Other countries are covered by our teams in the Impactt China, UK and Asia Pacific offices. Impactt is a Fair Labor Association (FLA) accredited auditor in China and has carried out assessments for many clients including Dell, Ethical Trading Initiative, New Look, Tesco, Marks & Spencer and Bovis Lend Lease.
If you want to find out more about our experience in conducting production site assessments, or to discuss your company’s situation and needs please email info@impacttlimited.com or call us on +44 (0) 207 242 6777.
The quotes below demonstrate the response to our approach at different levels of the supply chain after a project with Oxfam’s suppliers which involved assessments, consultancy and training for factories.
“The strength of Impactt’s approach was getting factory management’s buy-in to the benefits of making changes that improved productivity and labour standards at the same time. Once on site, they interviewed workers to hear their concerns and geared the training course to showing managers how a series of practical changes could deliver these benefits.” Rachel Wilshaw, Purchasing Strategy Manager, Oxfam
“The factory are asking that Impactt visit again for longer. It’s great to see how keen they are to improve and that using Impactt with their local knowledge is clearly working. They seem to be taking the training and audit very seriously.” Supplier to Oxfam
Worker interviewer: ” How do you feel about us coming and talking to you?” Worker: ” I feel very good and so do all the workers. We hope that if we talk about our problems with the assessment team then our problems will be solved very easily.” Garment factory worker
