When is the Best Time to Conduct Internal Audits

[insect warfare]

In Reply to Parent Post by harry

These two sentences are contradictory. Isn't the purpose of scheduling (which is a result of planning) is to avoid situations such as those in the second sentence (and more such as shut downs, peak season, etc)?

Exactly. This is not an issue when you are able to schedule audits based on "status", for which this scenario would completely qualify...

Brian

[gpainter]

If the process is down there are many other opportunities to look at depending on the situation. The IA could look at training, if the machine is down-PM would be a good choice, etc.. We audit to make ourselves better not just for the registrar.

[Chance]

In Reply to Parent Post by harry

These two sentences are contradictory. Isn't the purpose of scheduling (which is a result of planning) is to avoid situations such as those in the second sentence (and more such as shut downs, peak season, etc)?

Thanks Harry. It might be the case in a mature QMS environment, but in our case it is not done like that. As an improvement strategy, I am doing my research on how can we improve our audit program.
Right now, the schedule is just set up to make sure that every area is audited once a year. It is not yet taken into consideration of doing it while the execution of work is in-progress.

[Chance]

In Reply to Parent Post by insect warfare

Exactly. This is not an issue when you are able to schedule audits based on "status", for which this scenario would completely qualify...

Brian

This is our improvement plan...we are going to get there...

[Chance]

In Reply to Parent Post by gpainter

If the process is down there are many other opportunities to look at depending on the situation. The IA could look at training, if the machine is down-PM would be a good choice, etc.. We audit to make ourselves better not just for the registrar.

Thanks for your input. But as other posters have said, this is not enough to base our conclusions for the effectiveness of the process by just looking at the past records. The effectiveness of IA would increase if we are doing it while the execution of work is in progress.

[RCBeyette]

In Reply to Parent Post by Chance

Thanks for your input. But as other posters have said, this is not enough to base our conclusions for the effectiveness of the process by just looking at the past records. The effectiveness of IA would increase if we are doing it while the execution of work is in progress.

I don't believe gpainter was suggesting you look at merely records. Again, if the machine down, you could look at activites that SUPPORT the line when it is up and running.

Training - Are the personnel skilled and competent and qualified to work on the line?

Maintenance - Is there any scheduled maintenance being performed on the idle line/machinery? Is there any unscheduled maintenance being performed on the idle line/machinery? How is the maintenance process handled?

Production - Is there a shut down or start up process that can be audited?

I still think auditing while the line is operational is ideal, but if it's not, there are still other aspects that can be audited which strongly support the performance of the production line.

[Chance]

In Reply to Parent Post by RCBeyette

I don't believe gpainter was suggesting you look at merely records. Again, if the machine down, you could look at activites that SUPPORT the line when it is up and running.

Training - Are the personnel skilled and competent and qualified to work on the line?

Maintenance - Is there any scheduled maintenance being performed on the idle line/machinery? Is there any unscheduled maintenance being performed on the idle line/machinery? How is the maintenance process handled?

Production - Is there a shut down or start up process that can be audited?

I still think auditing while the line is operational is ideal, but if it's not, there are still other aspects that can be audited which strongly support the performance of the production line.

These parameters are already included in our 2 years of IA while the execution of work is down -out of season. Our processes is not manufacturing by nature. So we don't really have machine downtimes.
If we do internal audits during the season, we might be able to see more OFI's and if there is a failure we could help detecting it at an early stage before it can do more damages. We might be able to see gaps in the process which we cannot see if auditing them in a form of interview and looking at past records.