It is acceptable moving remote locations staff to manufacturing plant for auditing?

[Ferreira_Portugal]

Hello,
In the company where I'm working, we are experiencing a huge issue with the CB that certificates our plants of Asia perimeter, because doesn't accept as valid the certificates of another different CB that certificates our other sites and remote locations in the rest of the world.
Basically, the issue is that the audit reports issued in 2017 for the sites + Remote locations, didn't mentioned for which other sites these remote support locations (mainly design centre issue) are working for.

Last week the CB audited one of our sites in Asia and raised 1 major NC because of this, and now we are trying to reschedule the audits in the affected European sites + attached RSL in order to get the audit reports with the description of all production sites around the world supported by the RSLs.
As this action needs to be done quickly, someone put the question if would be possible move some staff of the design centres to the production plant and do the external audit at once !!!
Is this option acceptable or is completely impossible?

 

[Sidney Vianna]

Re: It is acceptable moving remote locations staff to manufacturing plant for auditin

Last week the CB audited one of our sites in Asia and raised 1 major NC because of this, and now we are trying to reschedule the audits in the affected European sites + attached RSL in order to get the audit reports with the description of all production sites around the world supported by the RSLs.

Wouldn't it be much more cost effective and timely if the remote support site audit reports were revised to indicate the scope of the audits and which manufacturing sites are supported (and how) from each remote site?

If the audits were properly conducted, it seems that it is more of a matter of documenting the scope of the audit(s) and the connections between the support sites and the manufacturing plants. If I were you, I would ask your IATF CB if they would accept that as a correction, instead of demanding a whole new round of audits for the remote sites.

Boa sorte.

 

[Ferreira_Portugal]

Re: It is acceptable moving remote locations staff to manufacturing plant for auditin

Hello Sidney Vianna and thanks by your quick reply, Much appreciated.

We already tried to get the changes in the last year audit reports, but unfortunately the CB that cover the sites out of Asia doesn't want to change anything in the reports because they say that they have respected the certification rules in 2017 and in 2018 they're already stating in the reports the plants supported by development centers...
So, my conclusion is that this is an issue between CBs and we are in the middle of the fight....
Anyway, what we are trying to do is to attach the remote design centers to other production sites which will be audited in the coming weeks and try in this way getting the new audit report with the indication of the plants around the world supported by the design centers.

My concern at this time it is if is accepted by the CB that some staff from the design centers travel to the manufacturing site in order to be audited OR if it is imposed by IATF rules that the audit needs to be done in the remote location physical place.


Thanks

 

[Sidney Vianna]

Re: It is acceptable moving remote locations staff to manufacturing plant for auditin

My concern at this time it is if is accepted by the CB that some staff from the design centers travel to the manufacturing site in order to be audited OR if it is imposed by IATF rules that the audit needs to be done in the remote location physical place.

People don't get audited. The system does. And the general expectation is that the system being audited is representative of the system and processes, when it is not being audited. So, if the design center personnel work at the remote locations, with the remote site infrastructure, support, etc...the system should be audited where the processes happen, i.e., remotely. Otherwise, it would not be representative of the actual system being approved, in my opinion.

Since the IATF 16949 transition deadline is quickly approaching, I would think CB's would be hard pressed to find the resources for these "unexpected" audits.