Vietnam factory verification checklist

The short answer. A factory verification is a visit by someone independent of the supplier, who checks on site that the company you are buying from makes your product, at the address it gave you, at the scale it claims, from the materials it claims. It covers eight areas: identity, production capability, capacity, materials and stock, workforce, documents, subcontracting, and the written record. The result is a report you can show to your customer, your auditor or a regulator.

We do not publish the full on-site protocol. A script that is public is a script a supplier can rehearse. What follows is what we cover and why each area is there.

1. Who runs the site?

The name at the gate, on signs and on documents kept at the site should be the company on your contract. A related company sharing the address is not the same thing. Your certificates, your liability and your legal evidence all belong to a named company, so a mismatch here weakens everything else.

2. Can the factory make this product?

We look at which machines and processes are on site and whether they suit your product. This is also how a manufacturer is told apart from a trader or an assembler: the question is which main steps happen in this building. For furniture that means asking about cutting, edge banding, lamination, painting and finishing, and comparing the answers with the equipment actually there. We also check that the equipment on site, whoever owns it, is adequate to sustain the claimed production capacity.

3. Does the capacity match the claim?

We compare what is running on the day with the monthly capacity the supplier gave you. How many lines are working? How much room is left for your order? An order placed against capacity that does not exist can fall apart after the deposit has been paid.

4. Are the materials and stock there?

Raw materials, parts and finished stock are compared with what your product and your volume need, and with what the supplier says it buys and from where. Stock is physical proof of sourcing. For wood products it is the starting point for the origin questions that EUDR, the Lacey Act and UFLPA all ask.

5. Who works there?

Headcount and shifts should fit the capacity claimed. We note the working conditions we can see during the walk-through. This is a check that claim and reality agree. It is not a social-compliance audit.

6. Which documents does the company really hold?

Certificates are checked with the body that issued them. Intake, harvest and origin papers are looked at as records the company keeps, not as summaries written for the visit. A supplier who can show a one-page summary but not the papers behind it has told you something.

7. Is any work done elsewhere?

We ask about subcontracting directly, on site, and we ask the production staff as well as the sales contact. The walk-through includes the areas next to the main floor.

8. How is it written down?

Each area goes into the report together with the evidence behind it. The report separates what we saw and confirmed from what was claimed and could not be confirmed. The evidence annex holds the photos and documents. The sample report shows the format.

What we need from you before the visit

• the supplier's legal name and the address you were given
• the product, the specification and the order size
• every claim you want tested, such as capacity, certificates, origin or subcontracting
• which rules apply to your shipment: EUDR, the Lacey Act, UFLPA

What this is not

A factory verification is not a quality inspection, a pre-shipment inspection or a social audit. We do not do those, and the reason is independence: we are paid by the buyer only and sell nothing else. For quality control and pre-shipment inspection we refer buyers to specialist firms. See what Field Diligence does not do.

Common questions

What is the difference between a factory verification and a factory audit? An audit scores a factory's systems, such as quality or working conditions, against a standard. A verification checks facts: who the company is, what it can make, what it holds and where its materials come from.

Who pays for the verification? The buyer, and only the buyer. The supplier pays nothing and cannot influence the result.

Can the supplier prepare for the visit? That depends on the scope you choose. Announced visits give access to documents and management. Unannounced visits show conditions as they normally are. In both cases, what we ask and in what order is not shared in advance.

Related

• Vietnam supplier due diligence checklist
• Red flags when sourcing timber and furniture from Vietnam
• Verification methodology

We run this checklist on every site visit. The fee is fixed and published, the buyer pays, and the supplier does not. See current pricing or book a free scoping call.