AS9100 & Safety Audit Findings - Para 6.4 Work Environment - Fork lift records

In a review re-cert audit, I was dealt a finding for not having consistent fork lift records.

Para 6.4 Work Environment: The org shall shall determine and manage the work environment needed to achieve conformity to product requirements.

Reason given if our fork lift operators are hurt due to faulty equipment, it may cause a missed shipment.

Is this legit?

thanks

Are the forklift records a defined part of your QMS? If not, I think it's out of line. Unless there is evidence that the environment hasn't been properly maintained (or infrastructure - I would have chosen 6.3c instead of 6.4) and is causing conformity issues then I think the auditor has gone outside the scope of the audit.

We recently had a similar discussion in this thread, starting with post #10.

BobQA said:

In a review re-cert audit, I was dealt a finding for not having consistent fork lift records.

Para 6.4 Work Environment: The org shall shall determine and manage the work environment needed to achieve conformity to product requirements.

Reason given if our fork lift operators are hurt due to faulty equipment, it may cause a missed shipment.

Is this legit?

thanks

Click to expand...

Bob,

Welcome to The Cove Forums!

Did you discuss this issue with the Auditor during the closing meeting, and prior to the Auditor leaving? At the completion of this meeting you and your colleagues should be very clear on the audit results.

Personal opinion? Forklifts would fall under "suitable equipment." Others may differ in opinion...

Stijloor.

The closing meeting was high energy with lively discussion, very lively. We got the Lead to remove one finding and I was working on another when they booked out of there.

Prior to my joining the company he gigged us on a similar "OSHA" type finding and the previous QM accepted it.

I have one finding I am going to appeal, I'll have to answer it and close it out since this was a recert audit and I don't have the luxury of time. But I am going to appeal it.

BobQA said:

The closing meeting was high energy with lively discussion, very lively. We got the Lead to remove one finding and I was working on another when they booked out of there.

Prior to my joining the company he gigged us on a similar "OSHA" type finding and the previous QM accepted it.

I have one finding I am going to appeal, I'll have to answer it and close it out since this was a recert audit and I don't have the luxury of time. But I am going to appeal it.

Click to expand...

Bob,

You handled it well. An auditor with a bias towards safety....
Safety is very important, but in your case blown out of proportion...

Keep us posted.

Stijloor.

Yep, normally an out of scope NC unless the records were relevant to the ability of the equipment to safely handle product as part of the product realization process

Hi,

This happens with many auditors, specially those who does audit for ISO 14001 and OHSAS.They some times mix up the statutory/regulatory requirements of product with requirements applicable to organisation's safety or environmental related issues.For AS9100 if any of the legal (statutory/regulatory) requirement applicable to organisation's product is not met thaen it is a non-conformity.This is as per standard and all my friends in the forum has supported this.

I have a question to you.If the license is not available, what can be the consequence for your organisation?I understand that in developed countries, organisations are heavily penalised/closed for non compliance of OHSA/environment related requirements.In that case can you meet your customer's delivery schedule?What about your risk evaluation (coming soon)?

So,you may consider to accept the NCR considering the benefit your organisation has got from this audit.You have paid for AS9100 audit but the auditor has done value addition by doing OHSA audit in addition to AS9100.

Thanks for the reply.

You are assuming the findings related to product conformance, they did not. Which is my frustration with the findings.

The fact you made that assumption further emphasizes my point the findings are out of scope.

As for the value the audit added, from a Quality viewpoint, no value was added but tons of work was.

Thanks for the reply.

You are right the penalties for safety violations are large.

But in this case I think we hung ourselves. The checklist calls for a "daily check", whereas the forklifts are not used daily, maybe once every two weeks is more the norm. We were gigged for not checking it daily, the intent of the checklist was prior to use.

A safety inspector would look at the prior to use aspect, whereas a Quality auditor would look at the form. More arguement why the Quality auditors need to stay out of safety/environmental issues, unless they are part of the QMS for reasons of product conformance.

You're right Bob....bad NC

You're also right about quality auditors sticking thier noses into Safety & Environmental....especially those that are not professionals in the field of EHS and are just doing the Monkey see-Monkey do thing