cncmarine said:
This thread irritates me more then anything on the cove.
An audit is a sample. It is your job as managers to find and correct the nonconformities in your quality system. If you are waiting for your registrar to find the nonconformities in your system before you take corrective action….
Then you have an ineffective system.
No one is disputing that. What we are asking here is if people think that externals are value-added, or a necessary evil. And - I think it is a fair question to be asking. There are good internal auditors and there are bad internal auditors - you have to admit that. So why can't the same be said for external auditors?
During our last audit, the auditor took something and wrote it up as an OFI. It was related to MR - I was of the opinion that it was a NC, but my boss said it might stir things up too much and get the top bosses' backs up. So, OFI it was. Political. Problem is that MR is a fairly confidential process around here - there was very little evidence that things are actually completed, other than assurances that "it's definitely discussed". Nothing comes across my desk, that's for sure. As an external, I would have called that a NC - but to each his own, I suppose.
It's not that I'm waiting for my auditor to identify nonconformances for me. Sometimes the auditor's findings can be used politically - to deal with changes that are required but are not getting the necessary support, for example. Above all - we have an internal audit system that works, and we are certainly not sitting back and expecting our external auditors to come and clean up our mess - but when word of mouth seems to get us through an assessment, then he** yes, I'm going to question the suitability and the value of the process. Sometimes you just don't get what you pay for.