Case Study: Private Standards IKEA

IKEA does not prescribe HOW the supplier should comply only WHAT the requirements are. Cost of the compliance is borne entirely by the supplier.

 

BENEFITS

Potential benefits of compliance:

  • Access to consumer who buys large volume
  • Sustaining the suppliers workforce
  • Ability to comply with the requirements of other buyers
  • Increased competitiveness and efficiency
  • Savings (energy/waste)
  • Inventory management improvement

 

AUDITS

  • before the first delivery
  • 12 months after the contract enters into force
  • at least every 24 months
  • unannounced audits may be performed

 

IKEA employs 80 full time auditors and it has a monitoring group that checks the quality and consistency of its auditors. They also use third party auditors to check themselves.