Last week I was in "stealth" mode here in the Cove as my site was experiencing a 3-year renewal audit to ISO 9001. I admit that in my daily excitement of my job, I thought that the audit was in June...early March I quickly discovered the reality was April. :mg: But surely a system as mature as our own could handle this tighter timeline to ensure that all was in order within our house right?
Well, after the closing meeting on Friday, I sat down with the auditors and used the following analogy. I like to speed. I traditionally do between 120-140 km/hour in a 100 kph zone. However, I have not been caught and will probably not actually do the speed limit until I am issued a ticket.
Our management system was issued 3 tickets last week. In the past, we have received minors that were weak in severity (e.g., micrometer found out of calibration, etc.). This time around, we received not only the speeding tickets but lost some demerit points, as well.
It was a hard - yet needed - reality check to the state of our managment system and a good reminder that we shouldn't take the "maturity" of our system for granted.
Findings include:
All in all, it was a good reminder about the repercussions of getting too comfortable with the status quo. I hope my own experience will help some one else out there avoid a similiar moment.
Well, after the closing meeting on Friday, I sat down with the auditors and used the following analogy. I like to speed. I traditionally do between 120-140 km/hour in a 100 kph zone. However, I have not been caught and will probably not actually do the speed limit until I am issued a ticket.
Our management system was issued 3 tickets last week. In the past, we have received minors that were weak in severity (e.g., micrometer found out of calibration, etc.). This time around, we received not only the speeding tickets but lost some demerit points, as well.
It was a hard - yet needed - reality check to the state of our managment system and a good reminder that we shouldn't take the "maturity" of our system for granted.
Findings include:
- The organization is required to include information on results of audits as inputs to management review. The process for management review at XXX (sidenote - XXX is a remote location on the scope of our certificate) did not include the results of audits as a management review input.
- The management review for the area being audited is required to ensure that actions are taken without undue delay to eliminate nonconformities and their causes. The management system failed to ensure that corrective actions to eliminate internal audit nonconformities were taken without undue delay.
- The organization is required to ensure that relevant versions of applicable documents are available at point of use. The system for document management failed to ensure that relevant versions of applicable documents were available in some cases.
All in all, it was a good reminder about the repercussions of getting too comfortable with the status quo. I hope my own experience will help some one else out there avoid a similiar moment.
. Tell XXX that "faith-based" auditing has not been formally accepted in ISO 19011 yet. In the higher beings we trust. Everybody else better show objective evidence....