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August, 2000

This Month's Feature:

Challenges To Audit Findings

One of the hardest and most stressful things for a lead auditor or an auditor to deal with is when an auditee challenges your findings. Typically, the most challenged item is the severity. No one wants a Major. All managers want only Minors in their departments. That is a political question, and was answered in part in April's issue.

It is much more of a headache when they challenge the finding itself. There are a few things you can do to help deal with this problem.

Preventing them from the start.

The easiest way to avoid challenges is to avoid them from the start. There are two very active things you can do to accomplish this. First, is to accurately quote the standard (or procedure, policy, work instruction, etc.). Don't just cite the reference, but actually quote it. There should be absolutely no doubt as to what the noncompliance is not compliant to. This is very important. In many cases, the auditee can't tell what compliant looks like. For example, if the purchasing procedure states purchases will only be made from vendors on the approved vendor list, quote it. "All purchases will be made from companies and organizations on the approved vendor list."

The other step is to make sure you list the evidence is enough detail as to eliminate all doubt. List what you looked at and what you found. In our example, if you looked at four purchase orders, and two were to companies no on the list indicate that. "Of four purchase orders examined, two were to companies not on the approved vendor list."

Notice It did not say they were using "unapproved" vendors. That could start an argument as to whether the two were in fact approved. There is little the auditee can say. There is little room for argument if you follow this.

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Featured Book:
Title: ISO 9000 at the Front Line
Author: William A. Levinson
Publisher: American Society for Quality
Notes: Training your frontline workers in the basic principles of any quality management system standard has never been easier than with ISO 9000 at the Front Line

You can order this book from internal-auditor.com at: http://www.internal-
auditor.com/books.htm

Tips/Tricks/Laughter:

A name can make a world of difference. One company uses the term "Deviation" to indicate a noncompliance. This may seem like a little thing, but to a manager it sounds much more palatable than a "nonconformance". Even a major deviation sounds less than a minor nonconformance. Managers seem to accept the NCRs, called "Deviation Reports" with little argument.

 One caveat though is managers may not take the corrective action as seriously as they should. After all it only a deviation. It isn't like it is a nonconformance or anything.

Observations from the field:

During an audit, it appears that the procedures are not being followed. What can be done? Anytime our activities conflict with our procedures, we need to change something. There can only be two choices. Either your activities must change, or your procedure must change. Look at both to determine which is most valid, and change the other. One important thing to remember though. As internal auditors we should not be concerned with what changes. Our only concern should be that whatever changes will be effective.

Michigan Manufacturing Technology Center

Element Understanding:

4.18 Training 

"Personnel performing specific assigned tasks shall be qualified on the basis of appropriate education, training and/or experience."  This is an important and often overlooked part of Training. We want to use it to our advantage, but we don't want to use it when it requires us to do something. Let me explain. If you are going to say an individual is qualified because of training, you must be able to show that the training did in fact qualify the person. Just attending a training class or seminar is not enough. Can the person perform as a result of the training. You really need to be able to determine training effectiveness too!