Factory assessments overview

FLA conducts several different types of Independent External Assessments (IEAs) in the manufacturing supply chains of FLA participating companies. The assessments are performed by FLA-approved assessors.

Facilities are selected for IEAs based on the accreditation status of the company; the type of facility (owned or contracted); a company’s history with FLA; known labor risks; and other related factors.

Types of assessments implemented by FLA include:

Sustainable Compliance Initiative (SCI) Assessment

• Evaluates labor conditions at the factory level against the FLA’s Workplace Code of Conduct and Compliance Benchmarks.
• Identifies both factory-level and systemic issues affecting workers.
• Collects compliance data that is useful to identify trends and compare results between factories, regions or countries.
• Provides recommendations for immediate actions.

Social Compliance Initiative Baseline (SCIB) Assessment

• Conducted at companies’ owned facilities and may be deployed elsewhere as appropriate.
• In addition to recommendations for immediate actions, include sustainable improvement recommendations based on root cause analysis of non-compliances.

Audit Field Observation

• Allows FLA staff to observe and evaluate a company’s internal audits, training sessions, and/or remediation visits.
• Helps verify improvement over time following FLA monitoring systems’ recommendations from a milestone evaluation or past observations.

FLA periodically facilitates special projects and pilot programs that give greater visibility into companies’ supply chains. When a project requires a company’s participation in factory level monitoring or remediation, FLA may consider it as part of the company’s IEA obligations for that year.