A Supplier Audit Checklist You Can Use on Any Cutting Tool Maker

Most supplier audits fail for the same reason: the checklist is a list of documents rather than a list of observations. A certificate proves that a system was audited once; it does not prove that the gauge on the bench was calibrated this year.

This page is a working audit sheet for a cutting tool maker. It has six sections, a hundred points, and for every item an observation that decides the score rather than a document that suggests it.

The quality evidence a supplier can send before an audit is on the manufacturing quality evidence page. This page is the on-site version.

How to use this checklist

There are two versions. The half-day version covers sections 1, 3 and 4 and is enough to decide whether a second visit is worth the time. The full-day version adds equipment observation, the regrind area and the packing line.

Score each item 0, 1 or 2. A 2 means the practice was observed and the record matched it. A 1 means the record exists but the practice was not observed, or the practice was observed without a record. A 0 means neither.

The distinction between 1 and 2 is the point of the exercise. A supplier with good records and a shop floor that ignores them scores 1, and a supplier whose practice is good but undocumented also scores 1, because neither can be relied on by a third party.

One structural note: a supplier who hands over this sheet before the visit is displaying something a document pack cannot. It means the supplier expects to be observed, which is a different claim from expecting to be read.

Sections 1 and 2: system and equipment (34 points)

Check the certificate against the issuing body's public register rather than against the PDF. A certificate number that cannot be found is a red flag regardless of how the document looks.

Ask for the document control procedure and then ask to see a drawing in use on the shop floor. The revision on the print should match the revision in the system, and the two should be checkable in under a minute.

Ask what happens to a tool that fails inspection. The answer should describe a physical location and a disposition authority, not a process flow diagram.

Then move to equipment. Walk the grinding area and pick three machines at random. For each, ask for the maintenance record and the last accuracy check; the record should exist for the machine, not for the department.

Then walk to the inspection area and pick up a gauge. Every gauge should carry a calibration sticker with a date, and the date should be inside the interval. A gauge without a sticker is a finding even if the calibration record exists in a file.

Ask how the shop verifies a grinder's positioning accuracy, and how often. The answer separates a shop that maintains machines from a shop that repairs them.

Sections 3 and 4: material and inspection (38 points)

Take a finished tool and ask to see the blank it came from. The route back should pass through a batch number to a supplier certificate with a grade and a grain size where the material is diamond.

The traceability that a buyer should be able to ask for in writing is set out in capability data to request from a tool supplier.

Ask what happens when a blank batch is found to be out of specification after tools have shipped. The answer should include a list of affected tools, which means the traceability has to work forwards as well as backwards.

Look at the storage. Carbide and diamond blanks stored without separation, or without protection, is a finding that costs nothing to fix and says a lot about the rest.

This is the heaviest section because it decides whether anything else can be trusted. Ask for a recent first-article report and read it as a buyer would: does it name the instrument, its calibration status, the measurement method and the values against the drawing?

A report that gives only pass or fail, or that gives values without an instrument, cannot be audited. A report with an instrument identifier and a calibration date can be checked against the gauge on the bench, which is the test that matters.

Ask who has the authority to release a batch, and what happens when that person is absent. A release authority that exists only in one person's head is a single point of failure in the quality system.

The inspection findings are easier to interpret against a live sample. The sample validation process describes what a first article should contain when it is run properly, and it is the standard to hold the audit against.

Sections 5 and 6: rework, packing and delivery (28 points)

The regrind area is where a supplier's honesty shows. Ask how many tools were reground last month, what the remaining life assessment was, and where the record lives. A shop that regrinds without a log cannot tell a customer whether a returned tool is the same tool.

Ask what happens to a tool that fails after regrinding, and whether the requalification includes a first-article check or only a dimensional check.

Then look at packing. Diamond edges are fragile, and a tool that arrives with a chipped edge was damaged after inspection or packed without protection.

The packing specification and the shipping documents complete the audit, because a tool that cannot be traced to a delivery note cannot be contained in a recall.

The scorecard

Print this table and score in the last column. The points are fixed; the observation column is what the auditor looks at.

The total is 100. A score above 85 with section 4 above 18 is a supplier whose evidence can be relied on. A score between 60 and 85 is workable with a defined improvement list. Below 60, the first article is not the next step.

Red flags

These ten findings are sufficient on their own to stop an approval until they are resolved. They are chosen because each one makes some other evidence unverifiable.

A red flag is not necessarily a rejection. It is a finding that has to be closed, with evidence, before the first article means anything.

Where the audit is the start of a supply relationship rather than a review of an existing one, the commercial and technical route runs through the custom cutting tool RFQ.

What happens when a tool then fails its first article, and what evidence the buyer should expect, is in nonconformance and 8D for cutting tools.

An audit checks the supplier behind every gate. Which gate produces which document, and what an audit can then verify, is set out in the procurement sequence this checklist supports.

What published sources say about this

These pages support the measurement, capability and tolerance logic that the checklist tests. Each is cited for what it states, under its own conditions.

• Dimensioning and Tolerancing (ASME Y14.5): the definitions an inspection report has to reference for the audit to be meaningful.
• What is a measurement system? (NIST/SEMATECH e-Handbook): the components of measurement variation, the basis for checking instrument capability rather than presence.
• What is Process Capability? (NIST/SEMATECH e-Handbook): process spread against specification, which is what a first-article report should eventually demonstrate.
• What are control charts? (NIST/SEMATECH e-Handbook): the time-ordered record that shows whether a process is stable or drifting.
• Bias and variability (NIST/SEMATECH e-Handbook): separating a repeatable offset from a random spread, relevant when a gauge is checked against a reference.
• Reamers, machine reamers (toolmaker technical overview): the construction that a first-article report is describing.
• Reaming and fine boring (toolmaker competence page): the finishing families, used here to show what an inspection plan has to measure.

Outbound references are listed because the reasoning depends on them, not as endorsements. Scores are awarded by the auditor against observed evidence; no supplier is scored on this page.

Frequently asked questions

Updated 14 November 2026: first publication. Scope: the six audit sections and their observations, the 100-point scorecard with the 60-point floor, and ten red flags.

No supplier, including HENTRY, is scored on this page; the self-assessment column is for the supplier to complete and the auditor to verify.