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MY NAME IS
LILY OUYANG
I’m an environmental health and
safety auditor for HP in China. I’ve
been working for HP since 2003.
When HP Started auditing suppliers
in 2004, I spent four years training
our EHS auditor. Then I became a
full-time auditor in 2008.

These photos follow me and two of my fellow auditor on a

typical two-day supplier audit. They were taken with the kind
permission of our supplier in December 2009 and show how
we interact with factory management and workers. I am
grateful to the management for allowing us to document one
of our regular audits.

The group includes our audit team (in this
case me and my colleagues Emily Wang and
Ivy Liu, who are responsible for assessing
the labor, ethics and management. In this
meeting, we go over Hp’s social and
environmental responsibility program and
remind factory management of the
WE START EVERY
AUDIT WITH AN
OPEN MEETING
standards we expect from their facility.
It’s really important for us to have a good
relationship and to clearly convey our
expectations with the management at this
meeting, because it encourages them to take
our recommendations on-board.
MANAGEMENT
LEADS US ON
A TOUR,
but we have access to any parts
of the facility we want to see.
We make sure to look
everywhere, behind doors and
in rooms that the managers
may not guide us to.
WHILE I WALK
THROUGH THE
FACTORY,
I speak to managers and workers. Here, for
example, I am telling a worker that this
cleaning agent should be properly labeled as
hazardous, and that the work station needs a
notice showing correct emergency procedures
for working with the chemical. Because these
oversights were a relatively isolated incident,
it was a minor nonconformance. This assures
that the supplier will address this issue in
their corrective action plan, which HP will
verify in its follow-up audit. I also ask if they
know the correct equipment to wear to protect
against the chemical. These conversations help
indicate whether the correct training is being
provided.
 AUDITS CAN When we worked with this management team at a
different factory, we recommend that they install a
ENCOURAGE GOOD barrier to prevent flooding if tanks in the wastewater
PRACTICES treatment facility leaked. They’ve taken our advice and
built a small curb around this tank.
WORKING FOR
LONG PERIODS
Over a conveyor belt presents an
ergonomics risk. In this situation the
risk for workers was too high
because the conveyor belt was not at
a comfortable height, so I advised
the management team to better
address these situations and to adopt
practices like job rotations to
minimize the risk of strains. This
factory received a minor
nonconformance for physically
demanding work because it lacked a
system to manage ergonomics risks
and had not trained its workers to
control them.
THERE ARE SOME
CIRCUMSTANCES
that show management is on the
right track, but not quite there
yet. Here, for example, an enclosure
reduces the sound from a very noisy
stamping machine, which is a positive
step. However, there is someone
working inside the enclosure
temporarily which defeats the
purpose. This observation will
appear in HP’s final audit report.
FIRE SAFETY
Is an issue we monitor in our audits.
I often ask workers whether they
know how to safely leave the factory
if there is a fire, to check whether
fire safety training is being given
properly. I also check that the right
information is adequately visible so
workers can follow the correct
procedures. On this audit, the chart
provided was satisfactory.
 WE DON’T but also communal areas such as canteens and
workers’ dormitories. This site is typical of other
JUST INSPECT factories and also has recreational spaces, such as
FACTORY FLOORS, badminton courts and libraries. On-site health
clinics are also common in larger facilities.
THESE
MACHINES
are large rice cookers. The steam
escaping is quite hot and shows that
one is broken. I’m recommending to
the kitchen manager that they stop
using the broken device and put up a
barrier to protect workers from
being scalded. This problem will be
noted as an observation on HP’s
audit report.
A WORKER
EXPLAINS TO ME
How vegetables are cleaned (this must be done
three times using fresh water). I’ve been on
other audits where water is used more than
once to wash vegetables, so it becomes dirty. In
this kitchen, they change the water every time
and use three different tanks, one after the
other. I also asked the kitchen manager what
else the tanks were used for, to check that
meat or poultry were not cleaned in the same
place as vegetables. On this occasion, everything
was done appropriately.
Iit KNOW THAT
can be difficult for worker to
tell me the truth in front of their
bosses, so we always spend several
hours talking to them without their
supervisors around. In this photo,
my colleagues are talking to a small
group of workers that they
selected at random from a
production line of 75
WE WANT
WORKERS TO BE
HONEST WITH US,
But often they are suspicious that
we will report to management what
they’ve said. I find the best way to
develop a good relationship with
workers is to spend a few minutes
developing rapport by asking them
about their background and
interests outside work. That’s why
my colleague Emily is doing here.
WE ALSO TAKE
INDIVIDUAL WORKERS
aside for private discussions. This sometimes
reveals additional information. Here, Ivy is
asking questions such as:
• Do you know about the Electronic Industry
code of conduct?
• How many hours did you work last month?
• Have you suffered inhumane treatment?
• Do you know how to calculate your salary, including overtime?
• Do you feel comfortable speaking to management?
• Do you have adequate hot water in your dormitory
These interviews corroborated findings from the factory tour
and the document review (next slide).
WE NEED
THREE PIECES
Of corroborating information to ensure there
are no nonconformances in each provision of
HP’s Electronic Industry Code of Conduct.
These can include items such as discussions with
workers, documentation about training courses,
or evidence of policies and procedures in
employee handbooks as pictured here. HP needs
to ensure employees are properly informed of
their rights and given access to grievance
procedures.
WE FINISH
EACH AUDIT
With a meeting with senior site
management, production
supervisors, and local social and
environmental responsibility staff.
I find it helpful to have them hear
directly from us the details of any
nonconformances we expect to
feature in the audit report,
because they will be responsible
for addressing them. Our audit
report is then delivered to the
factory within 30 days.