I don't know of any specific checklists for process auditing and, quite frankly, I would doubt that a canned checklist would be of much use. It might give you some generic guidelines to be expanded upon for your application.
Our internal process audits consist, mainly, of the auditor taking the Production Control Plan and "walking the process flow". He/She compare what the Control Plan says we are doing with what we are actually doing. Auditors are encouraged to supply comments on potential "holes" in the controls we have in place which may trigger a PFMEA/Control Plan review. This seems to work pretty well for us.
Just a thought.
Bill
__________________ There is no psychiatrist in the world like a puppy licking your face. - Ben Williams
Our internal process audits consist, mainly, of the auditor taking the Production Control Plan and "walking the process flow".
I think it is important to look at all the processes, not just production (Bill, I'm not saying that is all you look at -- but it is all you mentioned.) If you wish to truly improve, then all support processes must be analyzed as well.
Auditing support processes is much the same, but normally they will not have a "control plan", and what they do have might not be on paper. But the process will still have some flow that can be followed.
I've seen so many requests lately for "Process Audit Checklists". Both Bill and Dave provided good responses. I think what might be beneficial to a lot of people is a checklist of areas to cover when auditing a process. Things such as: Inputs, Outputs, Objectives, Metrics to support Continuous Improvement, Interaction with other processes, skill requirements, and corrective actions, to name a few.
IMO, putting these kinds of things into format that can be used during a Process Audit would be very helpful. Has anyone developed such a thing?
Best Regards,
Hank Fowler
__________________
Insanity - believing results can be changed without changing the processes that create them.
Excellent point db. I have attempted that in the past but have met stiff resistance from the support departments. There are only a couple (QI & Shipping) that I can "force" to be internally audited and, therefore, operational steps involving those two are part of the Control Plan. I guess the other support departments prefer the "fire drill" approach of preparing for 3rd party maintenance audits the night before (and management hasn't seemed too interested in changing that YET - maybe after we get our first major finding???).
Hank & Thipan M- I would post our internal audit checklist but as you can surmise from my responses, it deals only with the process of manufacturing the parts (the "visible" flow). Hank's comments are "taken to heart" but I am limited by the competency of the people we place in the "internal auditor" position. About the time I have worked with someone long enough to get them to understand how to ask the "open ended questions" and then dive into the meanings of the responses, they are fed up with being a "policeman" and return to the production floor (there are many factors involved with this, but I don't think this is the proper thread for that discussion).
If you'd still like to see what we use, I'm pretty sure I can post it without getting in too much hock.
Bill
__________________ There is no psychiatrist in the world like a puppy licking your face. - Ben Williams
Thanks for the information. I assume this is from QS 9000, which I don't have a copy of. I was hoping that someone has something tailored around ISO 9001:2000 requirements.
__________________
Insanity - believing results can be changed without changing the processes that create them.
Process audit check list
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