WALMART SUPPLIER FACTORY SAFETY ASSESSMENT OVERVIEW

Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (“Walmart”) engaged Bureau Veritas to conduct fire, building and electrical safety
assessments at factories in Bangladesh designated by Walmart and directly producing goods for Walmart
suppliers.
• The assessments are designed to identify unsafe factory conditions and provide a foundation for the
development of effective remediation strategies.
• The process involves engineers visiting each factory multiple times during the assessment phases,
during which times engineers identify potential safety issues.
• Factory management develop remediation plans to address the identified issues and the engineers
conduct follow-up assessments to monitor each factory’s remediation progress.

About Bureau Veritas

Bureau Veritas is a world leader in conformity assessment and certification services. The group has 180 years of
experience in testing assessment and certification and more than 60,000 employees and 1,330 offices and
laboratories in 140 countries, including Bangladesh.

The Safety Assessment Process:

Bureau Veritas’ assessment teams consist of engineers with technical knowledge about fire, building and
electrical safety. These teams use their skills and tools to identify certain unsafe factory conditions such as
improper wiring, hot spots in electrical systems and visible building structural issues. Engineers visit each
factory multiple times under the following fire and electrical safety factory assessment process.

Phase 1: A team of experienced engineers conducts an initial safety risk assessment, focusing on issues that
Pre- pose an immediate risk to worker safety. If issues are identified which pose an immediate risk to
Assessment worker safety, Walmart will instruct production of its merchandise be halted until the factory
remediates the issues. Appropriate authorities also would be notified by Walmart.
Phase 2: The team conducts an electrical and fire safety risk assessment (“Initial Safety Assessment”) with
Initial the goal of identifying certain safety issues. At the end of the 8-20 day assessment, the team
Assessment prepares a report that outlines the findings from the Initial Safety Assessment, including photos and
notes for remediation, which is shared with the factory owners and managers.
Phase 3: After development of the remediation plan by factory owners and managers, the engineering team
First revisits the factory for a follow-up assessment to evaluate the factory’s remediation efforts (“First
Follow-up Follow-up Assessment”). After the First Follow-up Assessment the engineering team will produce
Assessment another report that identifies key issues that are still in the process of being resolved.
Phase 4: The team verifies that the issues identified in the First Follow-up Assessment report have been
Second addressed and conducts further assessments as deemed necessary by Walmart. These visits are to
Follow-up occur in early 2014.
Assessment
  
 

Grading System

Bureau Veritas developed a system by which key criteria are evaluated and rated based on the level of potential
risk to workers’ safety, with more weight being assigned to greater risk factors. For example, to calculate the
electrical safety score in the “Summary of Observations and Occurrences” section of each report, issues
categorized as an I-3 level risk are assigned 10 points, I-2 are assigned eight points and I-1 are assigned three
points. The final electrical safety rating is then calculated by dividing the total number of points by the square
footage of the factory being inspected and then multiplying by 1,000. The resulting “overall score” accounts for
both electrical and building safety and is correlated to a letter grade based on a scale from “A” (lowest
percentage of safety risk) to “D” (highest percentage of safety risk).

Report Presentation

The attached Bureau Veritas report is a summary of a larger detailed report which has been provided to both
Walmart and factory management.
 Report No.: AREFIN TEXTILE-
CAP- WM -203
Rev. No.: Final
Rev. Date: 28 Sept 2013

WALMART FACTORY SAFETY ASSESSMENT REPORT

FACTORY NAME: AREFIN TEXTILE MILLS LTD.
FACTORY ADDRESS: PLOT # 20-24 BSCIC I/A, PATIYA, CHITTAGONG, BANGLADESH.
FOLLOW-UP INSPECTION DATE: 21 SEPTEMBER, 2013.
REPORT SUBMISSION DATE: 28 SEPTEMBER 2013
ASSESSMENT SERVICE PROVIDER: BUREAU VERITAS (BANGLADESH) PVT LTD.

First Follow-up Assessment Report

Report Keys
Overall Scores: Ratings represent overall safety risk identified based on a scale from D (highest safety
risk) to A (lowest safety risk).
Importance of Issue: Indication of the importance of the identified issues based on the provided rating
scale as follows:
Importance 3 (I-3): Most Important
Importance 2 (I-2): Highly Important
Importance 1 (I-1): Moderately Important
Importance 0 (I-0): Least Important.
Rating Score: Measure of the safety risk – based on both importance and frequency of issues – for the
Factory (as defined below) with the best score being zero (0).
% Improvement: The change in the Rating Scores from the Initial Assessment to the First Follow-up
Assessment.

OVERALL SCORES
Second Follow-up
Initial Assessment First Follow-up Assessment
Assessment
Electrical Safety 9.06 [B] 6.00 [B] n/a

Building Safety 5.11 [C] 4.29 [C] n/a

SUMMARY OF OBSERVATIONS AND OCCURRENCES

Audit Audit Date Area I-0 I-1 I-2 I-3 Rating
Score

29 July 2013 Electrical 0 38 31 26 9.06

Initial
Assessment
05August 2013 Building 0 1 6 5 5.11

21 Sept 2013 Electrical 0 22 22 17 6.00

First Follow-up
Assessment
21 Sept 2013 Building 0 1 6 4 4.29

% of Improvement vs. Initial Assessment: Electrical –33.77 %; Building- 16 %

Bureau Veritas (Bangladesh) Private Limited
Haque Chamber, Level -6, 89/2 West Panthopath
Dhaka – 1207, Bangladesh
Registration number: C- 50643 (938) / 2003
E-mail: [Link]@[Link]
 Report No.: AREFIN TEXTILE-
CAP- WM -203
Rev. No.: Final
Rev. Date: 28 Sept 2013

Introduction

AREFIN TEXTILE MILLS LTD (the “Factory”) was subject to an initial Electrical and Building Safety
Assessment on 29 July, 2013, report AREFIN TEXTILE-INI-WM-203, pursuant to the Ethical Sourcing
Audit Agreement between Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (the “Client”) and Bureau Veritas Consumer Products
Services, Inc. dated April 11, 2012, as amended. The agreed scope of the Electrical and Building Safety
Assessment was as described in Appendix A (the “Initial Assessment”). Upon conclusion of the Initial
Assessment, the Client and the Factory were provided with a list of findings.

The follow-up assessment performed on 21 September 2013 was limited to considering the remediation of
findings identified during the Initial Assessment (the “Follow-up Assessment”).

Factory addressed some of the issues raised during the Initial Assessment and presented the Client with a plan
to address the remaining issues as soon as possible. The Overall Scores indicated above reflect such
outstanding issues.

Disclaimer and Limitations

This Follow-up Assessment report and any related assessments were issued strictly in accordance with the
agreed scope described in Appendix A. It is intended for the Client’s exclusive use and shall not be deemed to
create any rights in third parties.

This Follow-up Assessment report, and any other reports issued in connection with this subject matter, do not
constitute a guarantee of continued or absolute safety against fire, building integrity issues or loss of life or
property. They are solely intended to provide non-exhaustive information to assist the Client’s effort to evaluate
its level of fire and building integrity safety within its supply chain factories.

The Client is responsible for exercising its own, independent judgment with regard to the information contained
in this Follow-up Assessment report. Neither we nor any of our agents warrant the quality, outcome,
effectiveness or appropriateness of any decision or action undertaken on the basis of this Follow-up Assessment
report.

The findings set forth herein do not guarantee compliance with applicable laws and regulations.

Bureau Veritas (Bangladesh) Private Limited

Haque Chamber, Level -6, 89/2 West Panthopath
Dhaka – 1207, Bangladesh
Registration number: C- 50643 (938) / 2003
E-mail: [Link]@[Link]
 Report No.: AREFIN TEXTILE-
CAP- WM -203
Rev. No.: Final
Rev. Date: 28 Sept 2013

Appendix A
Building and Electrical Safety Assessment
Follow-up Assessment Summary Report

Electrical Safety
 Assessment of existing installations in light of relevant parts of local legislation
(BNBC-2006, Bangladesh Electricity Rule) and global standards (NFPA 70) is
referred to when applicable.
 Measurement of circuit parameters including voltage, current, insulation, and
leakage to identify system performance and risks
 Review of circuit load in relation to system protections to identify degree of
protection against overload and hotspots/sparks
 Thermal circuit imaging to determine temperature profile of the system

Building Safety
 Confirmation of existence of approved building design and verification civil design
as compared to with major dimensions of existing building construction
 Review of building utilization per permits and as utilized
 Review of compliance with selected chapters of local legislation, namely BNBC-
2006, Dhaka City Building Construction Rule 2008, Factory Act 2006 and Factory
Rule 1979 for the following items:
 Review of routes of egress – including exits and passages
 Review of fire detection systems
 Review of fire response elements – including sprinkler systems and fire mains
 Visual inspection of building for indications of structural distress
 Review of means of egress in case of emergency in shared facilities

Bureau Veritas (Bangladesh) Private Limited

Haque Chamber, Level -6, 89/2 West Panthopath
Dhaka – 1207, Bangladesh
Registration number: C- 50643 (938) / 2003
E-mail: [Link]@[Link]