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Third-party monitoring is a valuable component of our program, providing independent oversight of our own supplier auditing. The quality of third-party monitoring is critical. The consensus among Electronic Industry Citizenship Coalition (EICC) members is that standards vary among third-party monitoring companies and that the monitoring industry requires support to develop its abilities and achieve a consistently high standard.
The EICC is currently developing a formal auditor certification process for third-party monitors, which will be administered by a recognized auditor accreditation body. When available in mid-2008, all third-party auditors will need this certification before auditing suppliers on behalf of EICC member companies. This will help to ensure accurate and consistent results from third-party auditors.
Many publications, CSR events and conferences in 2007 emphasized the need to go beyond basic auditing if supply chains are to achieve sustainable change. HP believes that baseline auditing will always remain a critical part of the overall supplier engagement process and model and therefore warrants improvement rather than elimination.
The principles of strategic auditing are:
- The philosophy of the audit is a joint and collaborative effort between the supplier and the audit team.
- The purpose of the audit is to identify the level of conformance with relevant codes of conduct.
- The objective of the audit is to identify areas for continuous improvement over time and to focus efforts where the maximum positive difference can be made.
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