The Remote Factory Audit Checklist (Video Call + Third Party)
By Mohamad Sinno, Charcoal Expert · Checklist v1.0 ·
Ask AI for an importer brief:
The checklist: five identity checks, seven Class 4.2 checks
A general supplier-audit checklist will not audit a charcoal factory. Charcoal ships as UN 1361, Class 4.2, Packing Group III, and since IMDG Amendment 42-24 became mandatory on 1 January 2026 the old route out — passing a UN N.4 test and shipping as non-dangerous — is closed. Special Provision 978 states that the N.4 test "shall not be used to exempt carbon of animal or vegetable origin (UN 1361) from the provisions of this Code".
What that changed for a buyer: the checks that decide whether your container is accepted for loading are now process checks. A yard, a thermometer log, a printed box mark. None appear on a general vetting checklist, and none are visible unless you ask for them by name. Run Block A — it is the shared baseline and it is quick. Then run Block B, which is what predicts whether the shipment sails. It is the on-site layer of how to verify an Indonesian charcoal factory before you pay, which puts the registry checks and the document set around it in order.
Block A — identity and capacity
| Check | How you see it on a video call | A fail means |
|---|---|---|
| Legal entity and tax number | Screen-share of the NPWP card. Read the entity name off it yourself rather than accepting a spoken one | Name mismatch between the card, the proforma invoice and the bank account — the most common paper tell |
| The NPWP reconciles across documents | Compare the number on the card against the one on the proforma. The 16-digit form is the old 15-digit with a leading zero, so the two forms should reconcile digit for digit | A mismatch is the finding. Quoting the older 15-digit format is not by itself a red flag — plenty of documents still carry it |
| Registered address is the production address | Ask them to walk outside and pan across the gate and signage | A trading office. Not disqualifying, but you are buying through a layer |
| Feedstock is coconut shell | The raw material yard: whole and broken shell, not sawdust, wood offcuts or lump | A different product with a different ash and burn profile |
| The line is running | Camera held on a working machine for sixty seconds | A silent line during stated production hours is worth a second call |
Block B — the Class 4.2 checks
| Check | What you ask to see | A fail means |
|---|---|---|
| The weathering yard | Where finished charcoal sits before packing. SP 978 requires unpacked material be "subject to weathering (stored under cover, but in the open air) for a minimum period of 14 days before being packaged" | No compliant packing route exists at all. The deepest fail on the list |
| Dated batch cards on the stock | A close-up of a card on a pile | "We always leave it two weeks" without a record is not a record |
| Packing-day temperature log | The log and the instrument. SP 978 requires material be "packed into packagings only when the temperature of the material does not exceed 40 °C on the day of packing" | Self-heating in a sealed container is the failure mode this rule exists to stop |
| UN packaging mark | A finished carton rotated until the printed UN specification mark is readable | Post-42-24, UN-spec packaging documentation is part of the standard set |
| DGD data points | Which values they enter per shipment: expect production date, packing date, packing-day temperature | Vague answers usually mean the forwarder fills the declaration for them |
| Carriers that accept their DG bookings | Which ocean lines have carried their UN 1361, in which month — and whether that is a document or simply bookings accepted | No loading track record for Class 4.2 cargo |
| Pallet and stow configuration | Boxes per layer and layers per pallet, or confirmation of floor-loading | Improvised stow shows up later as damage claims |
The carrier row is the highest-leverage question on the list, and it costs nothing. Lines audit shippers to protect their own hulls, and their approval carries a date. You are borrowing an inspection somebody else paid for.
Running the call: sequence and evidence capture
Book against the right clock, and know who is on the other end. Our line runs 24/7; our export desk does not. It answers Monday to Friday, 08:00–17:00 WIB (UTC+7), and Mohamad Sinno answers it himself. Ask any factory the same question, because continuous production and continuous support are different claims that are routinely blurred into one.
Name the route; do not accept the tour. A rehearsed walkthrough is the documented failure mode of remote audits. Ask them to go somewhere you choose, in an order you choose, and to pan to an area that was not on the agenda. Reluctance to move the camera is itself the finding.
Prove the feed is live. Ask a question that cannot be answered from a recording — have them read the time off a wall clock, or pan to the weather outside.
Verify certificates at the source, not on screen. Any certificate shown to you on a call is an image of a certificate; check the number against the issuing body's own public database. That applies to us as much as to anyone.
Capture as you go. Record with consent, screenshot every document, and note the timestamp. A screenshot of a dated batch card is evidence six months later, when an argument is about what you were shown in August.
Run these checks on us
| Legal entity | PT Coco Reina Global Charcoal |
| Plant | KP. Wahiya RT.002 RW.004, Desa Gunung Sindur, Kec. Gunung Sindur, Bogor, Jawa Barat 16340, Indonesia |
| Carriers that have accepted our DG bookings | MSC — January 2026 · CMA CGM — January 2026 · Maersk — March 2026 · PIL — June 2026 (practical acceptance; no approved-shipper document is held) |
| Records supplied on request | Weathering record and vanning survey |
One item worth stating against ourselves: in December 2025 a booking of ours was rejected for an incomplete weathering certificate. We completed and resubmitted it, and it cleared in one day. That rejection landed before 42-24 was mandatory — carrier enforcement was already running ahead of the Code. A supplier who tells you no document of theirs has ever been queried has either not shipped much Class 4.2 cargo, or is not telling you about it. The recovery sequence is set out in the playbook for a refused DG booking.
When to escalate to a paid inspection
The escalation rule is not about order value. It is about which checks a camera cannot close. QCAdvisor, citing a 2025 Harvard Business School study, reports that remote audits found 59% fewer violations in physical-safety clauses than on-site auditors did (article dated 6 April 2026). The weathering yard, the temperature instrument, the printed carton mark and the pallet stow are exactly that kind of check: things you cannot walk, handle or measure through a lens.
Escalate when the weathering yard or the temperature log cannot be shown, or is shown without records; when the documents are immaculate and the production floor is not; or when the registered and production addresses differ and nobody will explain why. What an inspector is worth paying for is the physical half of Block B, not the paperwork half — the document checks above cost you a video call and an hour.
| Provider | Published rate | Basis |
|---|---|---|
| Sofeast | US$229 remote Initial Facility Evaluation; US$445 remote Technical Quality Audit or Technical & Social Audit | As retrieved 10 Aug 2026 |
| QCAdvisor | US$229–399 remote; US$400–800 on-site, Asia | Article dated 6 Apr 2026 |
| Importivity | US$400–700 per audit day, China; 20–40% premium for unannounced | As retrieved 10 Aug 2026 |
| QIMA | Product inspections from US$419 per man-day; supplier audit programmes from US$669 per man-day | As retrieved 10 Aug 2026 |
Those numbers are priced for China. QIMA's published Zone A — the cheaper tier — names China, Bangladesh, India, Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, Africa and Latin America. Indonesia is not on that list, and is not explicitly placed in the other zone either. Every checklist you will read prices an audit in Guangdong and leaves you to assume West Java costs the same. Get an all-in written quote naming the actual district before you budget, and treat any China figure as a floor rather than an estimate.
Ask us to run the twelve
Send this checklist to our export desk on WhatsApp — +62 821 3924 038 — and we will book a live video call and answer it row by row. Monday to Friday, 08:00–17:00 WIB (UTC+7). If you would rather start with the documents, ask for the measured lab figures and how they were tested.