A Preliminary Study of Halal Virtual Inspection: A Case of Halal Certification in Malaysia

Halal certification has proven to be one of the most effective ways to identify the Halal status of certain products or services that helps Muslim select foods that are permissible in Islam. The increasing global Muslim population leads to the demand for halal food, products and services. With that, the supply of halal certificates needs to be sped up to meet the increasing global demand. Coping strategies for the growing demand poses greater challenge to look for an efficient halal certification system that can be adopted by halal certification authorities operating in different parts of the world. The use of information technology (IT) in the halal certification system was mainly confined to data management and had not been explored in its use during the halal inspection process. Early exploratory work began with the conceptualization of the virtual inspection in the halal certification process in place of the current practice of conducting a face-to-face premise inspection method. The existing Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) framework is used as the basis for this conceptualization but unlike other cooperative work, halal virtual inspection must fit into the Shariah law. This paper presents a preliminary study of Halal virtual inspection using the Work System Framework (WSF) to identify the problem of inspection process both in the desk and premise inspection through document reviews and interviews with Halal certification practitioners. The result from the analysis revealed that an inspection process is dependent on the halal auditor's skills and experience. This finding implies that the halal virtual inspection must integrate the auditor's skill and experience.