Why only five spots for a case supplier audit?

Answer: They cover the flow from sack to shipment and total 100 points. Painting is audited separately. The real risk sits in retained samples and regrind, both inside the resin store.

Where does the 80-point pass line come from?

Answer: At 80 every spot scores near 80% of its own maximum with no critical finding. Across 40 plants, totals ran from 72 to 86, so the line screens out one weak spot.

How many people and how long?

Answer: Two people, 90 minutes for a case supplier audit: one reads machines and settings, one reads records and samples.

Can a plant with one critical finding start a trial order?

Answer: No. Critical findings are usually a wrong grade, an expired calibration or missing leak data, and all three scale up in volume. Correct, re-audit, then discuss a trial order.

Does the re-audit repeat all five spots?

Answer: After critical findings, yes, all five. Major and minor items are checked at the point of failure. A score that moves more than 8 points between visits says the first audit was weak.

Case Supplier Audit: Five Spots in a Case Factory Audit

Quick answer: A case supplier audit covers five spots: resin store, moulding floor, assembly line, test room and finished bay, scored out of 100 with 80 to pass.

Five spots against a 100-point sheet
Resin store: grade, batch and retained samples
Moulding floor: settings and first-off
Assembly line: latch torque and gasket
Test room and finished goods bay
FAQ

1. Five spots against a 100-point sheet

Six presses are running and robots are picking parts, so the plant looks clean at nine in the morning. Then the resin store: the third sack says PP copolymer while the dosing sheet says homopolymer, and the batch number is missing from the goods-in ledger. A case supplier audit starts from that mismatch, not from the floor.

The route runs unloading dock, resin store, moulding floor, assembly line, test room, finished bay, about 90 minutes end to end. At each spot one object must reach your hand: a sack label, a setting screen, a torque wrench, a calibration certificate, a pallet dunnage.

Spot	Weight	Object to hold	Fail line
Resin store	25	sack label, regrind bag, retained samples	grade differs from BOM
Moulding floor	20	setting screen, first-off log, setting card	settings unlocked, no first-off
Assembly line	20	torque wrench, gasket groove	no torque check, gasket misseated
Test room	20	calibration certificate, leak rig, retains	calibration older than 12 months
Finished bay	15	pallet, dunnage, stack height	floor stacking, above 5 high

Weights follow risk. The resin store takes 25 because a wrong grade makes the other four scores meaningless. Moulding and assembly take 20 each, since settings and torque decide crush strength and latch life. The test room takes 20, because a broken record trail breaks traceability. The finished bay takes 15, covering the condition of the case on arrival.

Scoring is out of 100 in 5-point steps, no decimals on site. Before leaving, the numbers go on paper and both sides sign; that sheet is the baseline for the re-audit 30 days later.

2. Resin store: grade, batch and retained samples

The resin store answers three questions: what resin is this, which batch, and how much regrind is in it.

Pull three sacks, not one: the innermost on the rack, the outermost, and the one being hung on the dryer. Labels must agree, and each carries grade, supplier batch, arrival date and regrind ratio; a missing field costs 2 points.

Case supplier audit showroom wall of sample cases, white shelving with blue, orange and yellow cases and a yellow trolley case

The grade must match the BOM character for character. A sack marked PP copolymer holding homopolymer halves low-temperature impact, and a drop at minus 20 ℃ shows it.

Regrind is where the store hides things. A hand-written 20% on the sack has to appear as 20% on the dosing sheet; a mismatch counts as adulteration. Latch fragments in the flake mean a torn screen and a blocked nozzle.

The retained sample cabinet is the last check: first-off samples, the tail piece of the previous batch and the approved colour chip must all be retrievable within 5 minutes.

3. Moulding floor: settings and first-off

Two things matter on the moulding floor: the settings on the screen and the first-off sheet on the desk. When they agree, the spot clears 16 of 20 without argument.

Stand at a running press and read the screen before the part: melt 235 ℃, mould 65 ℃, packing 5 s, cooling 28 s, checked against the setting card.

A first-off is the full inspection after a mould, material or shift change, run as 3 consecutive parts, all 3 passing before the batch starts. Count the last 10 mould changes against 10 first-off sheets; each missing sheet costs 5 points.

Machine and mould numbers must line up: the steel stamp on the mould, the number on the setting card and the number on the first-off sheet prove the tool ran in that press. When they differ, someone borrowed a sheet from another machine, which is why a case supplier audit walks the floor again during a shift change.

4. Assembly line: latch torque and gasket

At the assembly line a case supplier audit watches two motions: the turn that drives a latch screw and the press that seats a gasket. These set the repair rate over the first three months.

Latch screws run on a torque wrench set to 8 N·m with ±1 N·m tolerance, zeroed once per shift, with its calibration sticker on the tool trolley; an expired sticker stops the station.

Case supplier audit assembly bench, a worker in a grey shirt holding a black case on a green conveyor with red air lines overhead

Gasket seating is about groove and joint. The cord is pressed in as one length, never stretched, because 5% stretch pulls a gap open at a corner within a week. The joint belongs at the middle of a long side, where the two ends do not fight each other. Afterwards a finger along the groove should find the cord about 1 mm proud of the lip.

5. Test room and finished goods bay

The test room is checked certificate first, instrument second: a 0.02 mm calliper, a 0.01 mm micrometer and a 1.6 class gauge on the leak rig all need calibration inside 12 months, with certificate numbers matching instrument numbers.

Air tightness is the core case property, so watch one full test: 15 kPa held for 90 s with no more than 0.3 kPa drop. The rig needs today's record, and the case number on it must tie back to a batch in the finished bay.

The finished bay is judged on clearance from the floor, stack height and aisle width. Pallets sit 100 mm off the floor, stacks stay at 5 high, and the main aisle stays 1.2 m clear.

Findings have to be classified, or the corrective action has no shape. A critical item fails the audit on first occurrence; major and minor items are counted against thresholds.

Class	Threshold	Correction window	Re-audit
Critical	1 item	30 days	all five spots on site
Major	more than 3 items	15 days	problem spots on site
Minor	more than 8 items	7 days	photos and records

No trial order belongs inside the correction window: critical items usually touch a mould or a resin source, and stability still needs one more batch.

Conclusion

A case supplier audit earns its keep through evidence, not the score, because the re-audit needs something to compare against. A plant running 800 cases a day typically lands at 77: resin store 18 of 25 on regrind ratio and a missing colour chip, moulding 16 of 20 on unlocked settings, assembly 17 of 20 on an expired torque wrench, test room 14 of 20 on no leak data, finished bay 12 of 15 on floor stacking. That is 3 points under the line, so the plant fails and gets 30 days. The fixes are concrete: write 10 first-off sheets, lock 4 presses, replace 2 torque wrenches, add dunnage under 6 pallets.

Spot	Maximum	Score	Points lost
Resin store	25	18	regrind ratio unmatched, colour chip missing
Moulding floor	20	16	settings unlocked on 2 presses
Assembly line	20	17	1 torque wrench out of calibration
Test room	20	14	no leak record for the day
Finished bay	15	12	6 pallets without dunnage, stack above 5
Total	100	77	below 80, correct in 30 days

This article discusses container-side specifications and design implications only, and does not cover any handling, loading or use of the contents.