amfori extends its Quality Management Initiative (QMI) in three more key sourcing countries in Asia

From China to India, Thailand and Vietnam to boost governance performance of global supply chains across all non-food industries.

HONG KONG, Jan. 4, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- amfori, the leading global business association for sustainable trade, announced today that its Quality Management Initiative (QMI) is now extended to India, Thailand and Vietnam, following its successful service launch in China in mid-2022. QMI provides a set of standardised quick-scan tools for companies across all non-food industries to drive quality management capability improvements in their supply chains and conduct sustainable trade.  

New partners, Bureau Veritas, Intertek, SGS and TÜV Rheinland, join two existing recognised auditing service partners, QIMA and TÜV SÜD. Since the launch of QMI last year, the number of qualified QMI auditors has tripled to over 100 in the four countries served.

Quality management is essential for a company's good governance practices and helps ensure that a product is of good quality and made with respect for people and the environment. As the complexity of the global supply chain has grown, there has been a rapidly rising demand for professional guidance and assessment tools in production sites, for manufacturing practices quality management with a common standard.

"Globally amfori has provided solid services to help members improve the social and environmental performance of their supply chains through our Business Social Compliance Initiative (BSCI) and Business Environment Performance Initiative (BEPI) over the past two decades," said Linda Kromjong, amfori President. "With the extension of amfori QMI in Asia, we have enhanced our offerings related to robust governance to offer a comprehensive one-stop Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) due diligence supply chain solutions, helping members monitor the many complexities in enhancing the ESG performance of their supply chains."

Integrated Approach for Responsible Sourcing and Sustainable Supply – Comprehensive, Multi-dimensional and One-stop ESG Solutions

amfori QMI covers four essential quality management aspects during a single audit: Infrastructure, System and Environment; Product Design; Incoming Materials Quality Control and Production Control. Through a one-day onsite audit, the producer's quality management capabilities can be assessed and entered into the tool, enabling members to identify best practices as well as areas for improvement. 

Audit results are provided on the amfori Sustainability Platform, where a holistic ESG view of the supply chain can be visualised when combined with amfori's BSCI and BEPI. This provides a unique integrated approach to facilitate multi-dimensional and all-in-one risk/performance monitoring for a responsible and sustainable supply chain.

One Standard for All – A Linear, Scalable and Affordable Quality Management Tool

Aligning with international standards, amfori QMI offers a common standard across all non-food industries to assess the robustness of quality management in the supply chain, providing buyers with quick insights on potential new business partners' quality management capabilities as well as multi-dimensional monitoring. This helps significantly reduce the resources required for producer assessments and avoids duplication of factory audits.

The initiative helps avoid audit fatigue for producers and reduce audit costs, ensuring visible return-on-investment (ROI). Ongoing monitoring over time can also help track continuous improvement in quality management capability.

amfori QMI is available to all existing amfori members at no extra cost.  For more information about amfori, please visit www.amfori.org or email info@amfori.org.

About amfori

At amfori, we believe in a world where people, planet and profit can go hand in hand. A world in which trade serves a purpose: delivering social, environmental, and economic benefits for everyone. As the leading global business association for sustainable trade, we support our members to be sustainable businesses by helping them understand and improve the environmental, social and governance performance of their supply chains. And with a diverse team of experts that stays on top of legislation and business requirements and has longstanding relations with key stakeholders, we ensure our services remain up to date, and our members' voices are heard.

For more information, contact amfori at info@amfori.org.