Conduct the internal chain of custody audit

What is going on

The certification body's annual surveillance audit is booked for 12 November at Heyfield. The SHE and Certification Manager wants the internal chain of custody audit completed and reported by 16 October so any non-conformance can be closed before the auditor arrives. Since the last audit the business has taken on a contract harvest of a third-party plantation block for Merriwa Holdings whose certification status has not been confirmed, a quarantined salvage log batch has been sitting in a certified bay, and the Merriwa Holdings framing claim is under investigation. The register shows August inputs and outputs but the monthly reconciliation has not been signed off. Three certified sales need to be traced end to end.

Your brief

Plan and conduct the internal audit against the chain of custody policy and the register, trace three certified sales to their source, verify segregation and supplier claims, reconcile the August volume balance, record non-conformances with owners and dates, and write the audit report.

Work through it

You do not need to do it all. Doing a few of these will show you what the work is like. Your ticks and notes stay on this device.

• Read the Chain of Custody and Sustainable Sourcing Policy and the Chain of Custody Certified Material Register procedure and prepare an audit checklist of the requirements you will test.
• Select three certified sales from the Customer Orders and Despatch system and trace each back through pack, kiln charge and log batch in the Log Yard and Stock Register, recording the evidence chain.
• Inspect the log yard bay records for segregation: identify any non-certified or quarantined material recorded in a certified bay and record the finding.
• Check the Merriwa Holdings third-party block in the Harvest and Haulage Planner and determine whether its logs can enter certified bays; record what evidence is missing.
• Reconcile the August volume balance for structural framing using the register inputs, conversion factor and outputs and state whether the balance is positive.
• Interview two staff (a log yard operator and a despatch team member) on their understanding of the claim rules and record the result as a training finding if needed.
• Record every non-conformance with a description, the clause of the policy it breaches, an owner and a due date, and enter the audit as a record in the Safety and Environment Register.
• Write the internal audit report with findings, evidence, non-conformances and a readiness statement for the surveillance audit.

What someone in this role would produce

• Audit checklist and plan
• Traceability worksheets for three sales
• August volume balance reconciliation
• Non-conformance register with owners and due dates
• Internal audit report