Intertek Integrity Apparent in Factories Across the Globe

November 15, 2010

In the course of daily life, millions of consumers across the globe come into contact with products – clothes, food, furniture, toys and more – that were inspected and certified as safe and compliant before they ever reached store shelves. The highly trained professionals who conduct these assessments – most of the time thousands of miles away from where they are actually used – need to be not only skilled in executing inspections and audits, but must also exhibit a code of ethics and integrity. This gives   retailers and manufacturers confidence in their abilities, as well as some insight into their personal character. This is especially important when certifying safety, regulatory, quality, and performance standards of consumer products that are fundamental to daily life.

As a leader in consumer goods testing and compliance, Intertek takes seriously its responsibility to ensure and promote integrity at all points in the supply chain, from product conception, through development and ultimately to the store shelves. At the heart of this are the inspection and auditing professionals on the front lines of factories all over the world. Intertek has more than 1,700 global quality practitioners who perform training, auditing and inspection services for the consumer products sector. With such a significant presence in the consumer products industry, it is paramount to Intertek that these professionals uphold a strict Employee Code of Conduct rooted in ethics and integrity.

While Intertek infuses integrity and ethics into its ongoing auditor training program, we also work with our customers to ensure Intertek’s Employee Code of Conduct is readily available and prominently displayed where inspection and audit activities take place. This encourages transparency with our customers and their suppliers, as well as fosters open communication and on-site observation of Intertek auditors. We have created signage displaying Intertek’s Employee Code of Conduct for display in factories around the world where our auditors perform testing and inspection services. These serve not only to reinforce to our auditors the importance of rooting their work in honesty and integrity, but also provide on-site personnel an added layer of transparency.

In addition to making Intertek’s Employee Code of Conduct readily available for manufacturing sites, Intertek also recently implemented a formalized training program developed by Compliance Practitioners Initiative for all of our auditors worldwide as well as others in the industry. Intertek adopted the program to promote consistent, quality training focused on integrity and professional conduct across the testing, inspection and certification industry.