Auditing and Compliance

To work for Apple, suppliers must agree to our Supplier Code of Conduct. We insist they provide safe working conditions, treat employees fairly, and use environmentally responsible manufacturing processes wherever Apple products are made.

We’ve developed a global compliance-monitoring program to ensure these standards are being achieved.

We approach compliance monitoring systematically - with the goal of applying our resources to the facilities with the most needs. First, we evaluate all the facilities in our supply chain based on known risk factors, self-assessment surveys and their level of involvement with Apple. We then use this information to decide which facilities to audit.

How comprehensive is an audit?

When a supplier is audited, we send our team led by an Apple employee into a facility for multiple days, armed not just with experience but also with a detailed checklist covering every aspect of our Code. Each item on the list is assessed by interviewing randomly selected employees, reviewing hundreds of records and conducting physical inspections. Our team not only grades the supplier’s level of compliance with each item on our checklist, but also evaluates the strength of the underlying management systems.

We end the audit in a meeting with the facility managers, where we explain the results in detail and require the most senior manager to acknowledge the findings in writing.

After the audit

After the audit, we produce a comprehensive report and deliver it to the facility managers. If the audit contains areas requiring action, we insist the company submit a corrective action plan within three weeks. We review and approve each of the corrective actions and monitor the facility’s progress in implementing every item. While many findings - such as health and safety violations - are corrected immediately, we expect all corrective actions to be implemented within three months after the audit.

We provide our contact information as well as personally follow up with the people we interview during the audit to ensure that there has been no retaliation or unfair treatment as a result of their participation. In 2008, we are opening a hotline for supplier employees to report their grievances directly.