In audit times it is very common to see a lot of stress in the organizations among the personnel and a great amount of work because they focus on « fixing things for the audit » neglecting the day-to-day responsibilities.
One begins to encounter situations such as:
• The Supervisor begins to sign reports or other documents from several weeks ago.
• Due procedures are approved and all document folders are organized. Woe to him whom the quality manager finds an "uncontrolled copy" on his desk!
• The Quality Analyst fills out the Corrective / Preventive Action forms that were closed six months ago. Including the elaboration of the Ishikawa diagram!
• Managers and supervisors train staff on what to "say in the audit and what not."
Yes. Audit times are difficult, stressful, and high pressure in most organizations. There is never a shortage of the auditee who gets sick just the day he / she has to be interviewed.
Of all the above, is there anything that sounds familiar to you?
All that nervousness and pressure during an audit happens because the staff:
• You know what you are doing, you are doing wrong.
• Or you are not sure if what you are doing is doing well.
If the staff were confident that what they are doing is doing well, I am sure that the stress and pressure that is generated would be reduced to a considerable level. It must also be taken into account that in the face of such stress and pressure, the auditee may give the wrong answer to a certain question.
How to receive the Quality Auditor?
Know the audit criteria
In my experience I have come across many Non-Conformities written by an external auditor that are poorly justified, however the auditee almost always accepts it and takes corrective action towards it. Every time I see a situation like this I realize how little the auditees know about the criteria they use to evaluate them.
If your organization is to be audited against ISO 9001: 2008, try to study and understand the document. Know well what the standard requires and what not. Also make sure that each area understands the corresponding requirement. For example, teach purchasing staff the requirements of the ISO 9001 standard for this process and how they are already complying with it. In this way the staff will be confident that what they are doing is doing well.
Keep your system simple
When you have a very complicated and bureaucratic system, the personnel start to forget things or they stop doing certain activities that are defined within the system as mandatory to try to save time. This can be noticed when the quality personnel begin to fill out the corrective / preventive action forms or the supervisor signs the reports from several weeks ago, and from there, lots of non-conformities begin to emerge, which could have been avoided with a simpler system.
Your System must be such that it integrates with your organizational culture. If the culture is to have little documentation, then adjust your system to it. Remember the organization must adjust the norm to its culture and not its culture to the norm.
Here is the IARMP matrix which I have extracted from Peter Senge's "The Dance of Change". This matrix can help you simplify certain things in your system.
Make your staff aware of the importance of audits
Teach your staff that the purpose of quality audits is to evaluate the system and not people to see if it is effective and to detect opportunities for improvement. Quality audits are a very powerful tool to achieve continuous improvement in your organization.
A good way to raise awareness among staff is through small talks in the same workplace given by the same staff in the organization (such as quality, for example). But try not to make them aware just days before an audit, but throughout the year.
Answer only what is asked
In audits I have come across people who speak more than they should, and for this they mention things that perhaps they should not have mentioned. For example, once an auditee was commenting on how all emails and other stored records had been lost due to a virus that had spread to his computer. The question I had asked was totally different, however this gave me a clue to investigate further in the area of technology. This ended up being a finding against 4.2.4 of ISO 9001.
