Claes Gefvenberg said:
Not exactly a blast from the past, but I think this thread fizzled and died a bit too soon, and would like to resurrect it. Surely (at least I hope so) there must be more succesfull audits than this???
/Claes
It's difficult, sometimes, to get any true "success" stories from Internal Audits, at least in my case, because, while I see the benefits to them, I don't always see great and wonderful things happening after them. More often than naught, my pool of Internal Auditors finds cases of requirements not being met (they were met originally, but then things slide).
Internal Audits, around here, tend to be used more as a safety net. That back-up mechanism that ensures things are done when they need to be done. Like ensuring equipment in the Quality Control Lab is calibrated/inspected/verified at the proper frequency.
I guess the best impact I've seen off of one of my ISO 9001:2000 Internal Audits has been the improvement in the quality of sister-mill product received. Before, it was never politically correct to reject it - we didn't want to step on the toes of the bigger powers-that-be.
But as an Internal Auditor, I could not ignore how the material sitting on the floor right in front of me met none of our requirements except for chemistry and nothing had been done.
I had to write my Nonconformance in as unpersonal a way as possible. "Just the facts, ma'am." I knew what accepting this nonconforming product was doing to our own facilty's morale. I knew how it was making me feel. But, of course, feelings can not coming into play when writing up a Nonconformance. We were accepting product that did not meet our requirements and not issuing the supplier a Nonconformance as required. It sounds so trivial, but it got our two plants working together.
Not only are our requirements usually met now, but the quality of the product from the other mill (to their other Customers) has also increased.