Factory Audit & Supplier Verification

Five that recur. A first reply that answers price but ignores the construction questions. Refusal to show the cutting room or the pattern room. A quote with no validity period. Unwillingness to accept an inspection clause with a stated AQL level. And any request to pay into a personal account.None of these is proof of fraud on its own. Together they describe a supplier who cannot show you how the garment will be made, which is the only thing you are actually buying.

Thirty percent deposit with the balance against the bill of lading copy is the common structure. It moves with order size and with whether the fabric has to be specially dyed, but the shape stays the same: money follows evidence of progress.Two protections matter more than the percentage. The beneficiary name must match the business licence exactly, and it must be a company account rather than a personal one. And the order should define inspection before the balance is released, with the AQL level written into the purchase order.

Take the certificate number and the holder name and check them at the issuing body, not at the factory. OEKO-TEX certificates can be looked up in the OEKO-TEX public label database, and BSCI audit reports are verified through the amfori platform against the auditee ID.Check the scope as well as the validity. A certificate may cover certain product classes or certain production sites and not others. A certificate that is genuine but out of scope for what you are buying is the failure mode that most often gets missed.

Four stops cover most of it. The cutting room, where fabric rolls and lay height tell you the order sizes they really run. The sewing floor, where you count stations and look at what is actually in progress. The pattern and sample room, which is where a factory's development capability lives. And the finished goods area, where packing and carton marking show what the export process really looks like.Ask them to keep the camera moving and to answer questions while walking. A tour that is edited, or that skips the cutting room, is a presentation rather than an inspection.

Ask for a live video walk-through rather than a recorded tour. Look for three things: a cutting room with fabric rolls, cutting tables and markers; work in progress at every station on the line; and the actual number of operators present. Ask the camera to show the factory gate and the business licence on the wall.A trading company can show you a showroom, a catalogue and a sample room. It cannot show you a cutting room with your fabric laid up on the table.

Ask for the business licence, the most recent social compliance audit report with its date and the auditing body, the ISO 9001 certificate, and the OEKO-TEX 100 certificate number so you can check it in the public database yourself.Then ask for two things that are harder to fake: production and shipment records for the last three months, and the contact details of two existing customers in your market. A certificate proves a factory was audited once. Shipment records prove it is producing now.