Establishing Internal Audit Nonconformity Level Criteria - Major vs. Minor?

[Aaron Lupo]

Ranking the nonconformities in internal audits can be a very wise decision.
I do it all the time.
It’s also a good idea when you have quality objectives related to the number of nonconformities in internal audits.
This way you can state a number of observations, a number of minor nonconformities and a number of major nonconformities as maximum values for this kind of objective to be achieved.
Anyway it’s also a good idea to rank these nonconformities just to be in accordance with what 3rd and 2nd party audits are doing...

I know at my last place of employment we did not have Major/Minor ranking for N/C's. There really is no reason to give them a ranking, the ones that need an immediate response were assigned a shorter time period for response and the issues that were not as alarming had a longer response period. As far as the customer ranking them as major or minor they never did, and we would have on average one customer audit a week.

 

[tarheels4 - 2007]

There really is no reason to give them a ranking, the ones that need an immediate response were assigned a shorter time period for response and the issues that were not as alarming had a longer response period.

That would seem to me to be a ranking/weighting.

 

[Crusader]

My registrar does not recommend classifying audit findings regardless of the severity. Nonconformances are simply "Findings" nothing more or less.

 

[AndyN]

Hoorah for common sense........

I am so pleased to read the majority of responses are not in favor of such grading. It is an external (2nd or 3rd party) auditor's method and, as such, shouldn't be used internally. However, I got chewed out by a customer when I said that, during an Internal Auditor course I presented last week................

Andy

 

[QualityPhD]

OK, I feel the need to play Devil's Advocate here. Many have said NCRs "shouldn't be classified as Major or Minor", and should be classified as "Findings"...

Like a good auditor and trainer, I am asking you to "show me the shall" or "show me the should". This is a quick test of auditor ability to verify the guidance documents that apply to auditors and auditing...

Keep in mind that I already have a verifiable answer.... like any good auditor who knows the answer before he/she asks the question....

 

[stanislavd]

Measure and Analyze, here comes nonconformities clasificiation

Hi Folks,

IMHO the idea of not rating isn't very good. I always try to prioritize my work and this help me allot. So in one quality system I expect the audited persons and the auditors to have ranked the nonconformities and to know on which of them they shall focus more resources. Did you try ever to prioritize together with the audited or process responsible persons?
BTW, In some cases I have explained the "Minor Nonconformity" as description related problem - the process flow is not followed but the quality is not affected, so maybe the process description should be revised (the rule for lowest resistance path )

Ann,

I think there is ISO guidelines about "shall vs. should" topic. Do you try to link the "shall/should" with "major/minor"? If yes, pls provide us with some examples.

 

[Aaron Lupo]

OK, I feel the need to play Devil's Advocate here. Many have said NCRs "shouldn't be classified as Major or Minor", and should be classified as "Findings"...

Like a good auditor and trainer, I am asking you to "show me the shall" or "show me the should". This is a quick test of auditor ability to verify the guidance documents that apply to auditors and auditing...

Show you the shall or should for what, classfying internal N/C's????

 

[Myriam]

According to me there is no shall/ should for classifying NC's on internal auditing. But I think there is also no rule which says you should not.
So, in my opinion a company is free to classify NC's or can choose not to do so.
To be sure I also checked ISO 19011 which states, "NC's and their reporting audit evidence should be recorded. NC's may be graded."

 

[Martijn]

We are grading our internal audit NC's. I think it works because first of all the auditors are forced to look further then "it's not like it says in the procedure so it's a minor" and think more about what the finding means. Is it structural, is it clearly influencing customer satisfaction, what other processes are influenced by this, etc.. I think a major also proves that somebody has been sleeping/is not doing their job properly (assuming the QMS is ok and given the fact that working in compliance with the QMS is a personal objective), which should have results in terms of personal goals / appraisals, on all levels if it's not picked up immediately.

Say there's a site that structurally does not do any recording of customer complaints. They all know they have to, dont do it, PDCA-loop is simply not closed, write a major, make some noise, make sure top management fixes it straight away or else....

And no we haven't had any yet.

PS might be another topic in in itself, quality as integral part of objectives/appraisals

 

[Jim Wynne]

OK, I feel the need to play Devil's Advocate here. Many have said NCRs "shouldn't be classified as Major or Minor", and should be classified as "Findings"...

Like a good auditor and trainer, I am asking you to "show me the shall" or "show me the should". This is a quick test of auditor ability to verify the guidance documents that apply to auditors and auditing...

Keep in mind that I already have a verifiable answer.... like any good auditor who knows the answer before he/she asks the question....

Well, no one has taken the bait. I'm interested to hear your answer.