RESET
I would also agree that without a specific shall to address, it is difficult to formulate a precise response. Perhaps you will find that the auditor's finding was merely a suggestion for improvement, or based on an additional standard that is being followed by the sister factory. Perhaps the factory's quality manual threw this requirement in.
I seem to recall a provision for measurement tools being calibrated to APPROVED procedures, but without something to reference it's not really possible to discuss.
The question you posed originally is interesting. Where do these calibration procedures come from? How do you know what steps and adjustments are necessary? It's a good question.
Apparently there are not tool-specific calibration standards published on national or international levels. I would certainly like to be proven wrong, whether the standard is obsolete or not.
There are standards at this level for the establishment of calibration procedures. Industry practice, manufacturer's instructions or recommendations, past experience and the like are the basis of calibration procedures.
Some manufacturers produce calibration procedures for their products. The military often standardizes calibration of certain tools, but usually these are for large-scale electronic systems or machines out of different fields than dimensional metrology. NIST, NPL, NCSL, etc., have some procedures published as well, but this falls short of our purposes again.
How many different tool families and tool types do you estimate are under calibration at your facility?
The suggestion by the auditor is not really a bad one, despite whether or not it is proven a requirement.
Erik