Customer Auditing
Hello everyone,
I am a new practitioner and work in a very small food manufacturer, and we are SQF certified. We have a customer that would like to conduct supplier audit at our facility, but the senior management team is restricting on what documentation i am permitted to show.
Is there a requirement or standard, other than proprietary reasons, that would allow us to refuse to show
My experience for customer audits has been I show them only what they absolutely would need to see to check off their list. You are GFSI certified, that should be enough for them to know you have your ducks in a row. I always went by a rule of thumb, don't openly share documents, only share if they specifically ask to see a document or record. For example if they would ask 'Can I see your SOP for Customer Complaints?', etc. When they come in have them sign a confidentiality agreement. Most auditors do follow a code that they will not share details. If there is a document or record that you would no want to share do to proprietary reasons, then simply say that to the customer auditor.
Thank you so much for your response. I greatly appreciate it. :smile:
For us, it depends on who is doing the audit - if it is a customer direct audit where our customer is sending in their QA Manager or another employee is coming then it is a very restrictive audit, the fact that we are SQF certified plus a bunch of other certifications should be sufficient. For customer direct audits their employees and/or owner is required to sign an NDA.
If they are having a 3rd party Auditor come in we follow a slightly (less restrictive) process, there is no requiement for an NDA as (having been an Auditor myself) Professional Auditors follow a unwritten but very well understood code of silence - fact is when you are doing 5-7 audits a week I used to remember the faces, but everything else was a blur.
By the way, 24 years ago when I first became an SQF Auditor the idea was if you got SQF certified that ONE audit (or any GFSI Scheme audit) was meant to knock out the need for having to have multiple audits conducted by customers. Well, I guess that was the dream.
By the way, 24 years ago when I first became an SQF Auditor the idea was if you got SQF certified that ONE audit (or any GFSI Scheme audit) was meant to knock out the need for having to have multiple audits conducted by customers. Well, I guess that was the dream.
That's what I was led to believe when I got into the game 12 years ago, but we've all seen how that has gone...
To the OP, there are no specific requirements that you show a customer anything. From a GFSI standpoint, I guess someone could argue that the standards calling for you to meet all customer requirements could apply, but it'd be a helluva stretch to twist that language to say you're required to fully open your books to your customers if management doesn't want to.
If senior management is against showing the customer certain docs, then that's a business decision that could affect your sales relationship. Ultimately, it's their call.
If senior management is against showing the customer certain docs, then that's a business decision that could affect your sales relationship. Ultimately, it's their call.
essentially my thought. You dont have to show them anything. They dont have to buy your products.