What does a PPE compliance auditor look for?

An ISO 23616 auditor examines wash records per batch with temperature data, inspection certificates per garment per period showing the full checklist and inspector competency, condemnation records with the compliance rule that applied and the ISO clause reference, and evidence of wash life tracking with automatic condemnation at the limit.

How do I prepare for a PPE compliance audit?

Start 30 days out. Verify all wash batches have temperature records linked to individual garments. Confirm all inspections have certificates with every checklist item assessed. Check that all condemnations link to the triggering inspection or event. Ensure inspector competency records are current for every inspector who assessed a garment during the audit period.

What is a compliance pack?

A compliance pack is a document containing the garment register with current status and wash counts, wash compliance summary with temperature and programme data, inspection history with every checklist item and certificate, condemned garments list with ISO clause references, and a certificate appendix. With Vorrex GMS, this pack is generated on demand in approximately four seconds.

Resource

How to Prepare for an ISO 23616 Compliance Audit

5 min read · March 2026

You have been told an audit is coming. This guide covers what the auditor will ask for, where most laundries get caught out, and how to prepare your operation and your records in the 30 days before they arrive.

What the auditor will ask for

This is a documentation audit. The auditor is not there to watch your wash hall run. They are there to examine your records. Here is the list — and if you cannot produce any of these on the day, that area is flagged as non-compliant.

Wash records per batch with temperature — they will pick batches at random and ask you to trace a garment from the sling to the wash record. If the temperature field is empty, that batch fails.
Inspection certificates per garment — they will walk the plant, scan barcodes on the sort bench, and ask for the most recent certificate. Full checklist, every measurement, inspector competency record.
Condemnation records with compliance rule — every condemned garment must link to the inspection that triggered it. A condemnation without a documented trigger is as much of a problem as a defective garment with no condemnation at all.
Wash life tracking with automatic condemnation — they will ask what happens when a garment reaches its limit. The answer they expect: automatic condemnation, no operator intervention.
Inspector competency records — every inspector who assessed a garment during the audit period must have a current competency record on file. No record, no valid inspection.

How laundries actually fail audits

Not through negligence. Through gaps nobody knew existed until the auditor found them.

47 batches with missing temperature data. 200 batches a month, 47 missing temperature over 12 months. The auditor does not care why. Every garment in those batches has a compliance gap.
976 manual file lookups. The auditor asks for a compliance pack for a client with 976 wearers. Your records are in a filing cabinet, a shared drive, and three spreadsheets. Producing the pack takes weeks. It should take seconds.
Missing condemnation-inspection links. 34 garments condemned in Q3. The auditor picks five and asks for the inspection that triggered each one. Two have no linked inspection record. The condemnation has no documented trigger — and that is a major finding.

If you are doing this manually: 30-day checklist

This is what audit preparation looks like without a system. If it feels like a lot of work, that is the point.

30 days out — Find your gaps

Sample 50 garments from the client register. For each one, verify you can produce: wash count, last inspection certificate, condemnation record (if applicable), and wash temperature records for every batch. If more than 10% have gaps, you have a systemic issue with 30 days to fix it.

14 days out — Build the compliance pack

Assemble a draft pack and review it as if you were the auditor. Focus on the garments they are most likely to pull: recently condemned, high wash count, recently issued to wearers. Missing certificates and incomplete records need to be filled now.

7 days out — Verify inspector records

Every inspector who assessed a garment during the period needs a current competency record on file. If someone left mid-period, their record still needs to be producible. Also check calibration certificates for measurement tools.

Day of — Do not lose a record you actually have

The worst thing that can happen during an audit is not a non-compliance finding. It is failing to produce a record that does exist, because nobody could find it. If your records are in multiple systems, designate one person who knows where everything is and can retrieve any record within minutes.

Or skip all of that

With Vorrex, audit preparation does not exist as a task. The compliance pack — garment register, wash compliance, inspection history, condemnation log, certificates — generates on demand in four seconds. 60+ pages. Every garment, every record, every certificate. For any client, for any period.

No 30-day countdown. No two staff members pulling files for two weeks. No scrambling to find a record that you know exists somewhere. The auditor asks. You click a button.

45 minutes. Your garment types. No slides.

We walk through the real system with your products, your compliance rules, and your contract structure.