So clean I do not even recognize the place.
Today we had the audit from the South African Bureau Of Standards known as SABS. This was requested by one of our clients making sure we are fully compliant with our safety procedures and quality controls. A pain in the back side which I thought would be over in 30 minutes because honestly there is not much to see.
How wrong we all were as the hours ticked by and she finally left at 3pm after arriving at 10am. We couldn't hurry the process up as she is worth dollar signs with the new client expected to order on average 500 punching bags per month. This is a just an extra hoop we have to hurdle to land new business and now we will be compliant maybe others will hop on.
All we are doing is filling punching bags so this is not something I would have thought was necessary. The last supplier had a blade found in one of the bags when it was found protruding through the exterior punch bag skin. From what I understand it was a switch blade, but a knife is a knife and should be nowhere near this type of work. This was the reason our client wanted an audit before they
proceeded any further procurement from us.
We still need to add a metal detector ,a sorting table and a magnet to achieve 100% compliance and we currently are in the mid eighties. She said we would be approved tomorrow and that is a positive. She even noticed two of my guys wearing ear rings which are also not allowed in the production area. When told the guys laughed thinking it was a joke ad we said she was serious so no jewelry is allowed at all.
They looked at the entire process and have asked for certain checks and balances that take place which we already have in place. They would like every bag recorded which requires roughly 20 boxes to be ticked before being passed for dispatch.
I understand all the red tape and nonsense that they require and is only going to slow tings down even more, but at least I know the weights are right and the quality is being maintained. This will come at a price however and there will be an additional cost for the extra staff member as this is not free. Once we have achieved our targets then only can we discuss a slight price reduction. All good for now though as new business is more profit.
