Factory Emergency Structural Assessment Program

In April 2013, the eight story Rana Plaza building collapsed in the Bangladesh capital of Dhaka, killing 1,134 ready-made garment (RMG) industry workers and injuring more than 2,500 others. This catastrophic structural failure propelled the global ready made garment (RMG) industry into action to make Bangladesh factories safer. By early 2013, several international retailers with supply chains based in Bangladesh factories had ongoing fire inspection programs, but until the Rana Plaza collapse, structural safety was not a fundamental concern. Rana Plaza spurred Gap to launch an emergency program to structurally assess all existing factories utilized by their vendor supply chain. Walter P Moore immediately responded to Gap’s request to confirm factory structural safety, giving workers the safety assurances they needed to confidently return to work. Our structural team assessed one closed factory four days after Gap called. Four more on-site assessments followed that week, then 12 more, then all 79 factories in their vendor supply chain over the next four months. We provided a report for each factory that included a corrective action plan and developed a color-coded rating system that was consistent with Gap’s overall vendor compliance program.