Combined Environmental / Quality Manufacturing Process Audit

[Ken]

Hey everyone!

First time poster here, but I have been reaping a lot of good info from this site for a long time. Great site!

I'm wondering if anyone has any suggestions on how to conduct an ISO-14001 audit on a single manufacturing process. I am trying to come up with a format to conduct a combined TS-16949 / ISO-14001 manufacturing process audit. I have the quality side down, but I have only a very basic understanding of ISO-14001 at this point.

What I don't want is a long checklist of questions like "Does the organization have a documented quality / environmental policy". I've had my fill of those!

Any suggestions or (better yet) examples of combined audits or stand-alone ISO-14001 audits based on manufacturing processes would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

 

[Randy]

Your 1st step would be to see if environmental aspects related to the process have been identified. Next you could look to see if there were any regulatory requirements related to those aspect, and how the requirements were being met (records, training, monitoring, reporting, etc...) Ask people involved in the process they know of anything that could happen to the environment if the process wasn't managed accordingly and se if there are any guidelines or procedures that provide operating criteria to keep an impact from occurring.

Just continue to follow the above type of process throughout the requirements of ISO 14001 (52 in all of which you can't meet the 1st until the other 51 are accomplished).

If you look at 14K it's pretty much a process in and of itself.....follow the trail it lays down.

 

[Ken]

Thanks for the input Randy. I'll give it a try.

 

[RoxaneB]

Randy has given some great advice (as usual), Ken!

Keep us updated on the progress and how the audit goes, please. I'll be doing the same at my site over the course of the next year and I'd love to hear your problems (and how you overcame them) and your successes!

 

[Teresa1000]

I too would like to see your progress Ken. I'm facing a similar situation and I had decided to separate ISO from TS audits next year. (We are in the process of changing from QS) Our Auditors tended to conduct QS and ISO separately anyway, even though they were scheduled together. I learn a lot from the discussions here and may change my mind (again).

 

[RoxaneB]

I too would like to see your progress Ken. I'm facing a similar situation and I had decided to separate ISO from TS audits next year. (We are in the process of changing from QS) Our Auditors tended to conduct QS and ISO separately anyway, even though they were scheduled together. I learn a lot from the discussions here and may change my mind (again).

Welcome to the Cove, Teresa!

If I may ask, why did you separate ISO from TS? (somewhat off the 14K topic...sorry guys) I would have thought that if you met the requirements of TS, you would have met the requirements of ISO.

 

[Teresa1000]

Sorry, RC

I should have been more clear. I separated ISO14001 from TS. It seems my auditors were not conducting a complete 14001 audit. They were treating it as an afterthought. I may combine the 2 systems again, later.... the problem may really be with my checklists.

Thanks for the welcome.

I've learned so much here and hope to participate more.

 

[Karen R]

We've been conducting fully integrated quality/safety/environmental audits for three years now quite successfully. Part of that comes from changing our overall attidute from looking at a task from "just a quality" perspective (or safety, or enviro...) to always looking at the safety, environmental, quality and business implications of any activity or process.

When we began the integrated audit process, we didn't use pre-written checklists. Instead we set up a process where the auditor prepared his own questions by: reviewing the control plan, reviewing the environmental aspects list, and reviewing the SOPs and related documents. Annually we also had a regulatory specialist from our corporate office conduct a compliance audit. This worked great.

Since TS we started down the road of pre-written checklists (based on our training, I'm thinking I'd like to get away from them, but many of the internal auditors like them...). Attached is an example of an integrated checklist (may need a bit more safety stuff added for 18001) and one of the related process flow diagrams.

Perhaps this will help. ... I'm also interested in feedback or any better ideas!!

 

[Ken]

Karen -

Thanks for the example!

I like that the checklist is very specific to the process, but I think that the checklist that I come up with will have to be more generic. I am doing internal audits for 8 different plants, and the manufacturing processes are not standardized between the plants. So what we end up doing, for example, is taking a control plan for the specific process being audited and walking it through the process to verify that the specific controls are in place. So the control plan actually becomes an input to the internal audit, but we don't necessarily write checklist questions based on any specific control plan. The question on the checklist would be something like "Are controls implemented according to the control plan?" I'm thinking that we would do the same type of thing with the environmental aspects lists and operational controls.

Does that make sense?

 

[Karen R]

Yes, it does. In addition to carrying around the control plan and aspects list during the audit (I don't usually attach it to the audit records - unless I had problems and wrote those notes on it - it just adds paper and you can always refer to a copy), we also use the process flow diagram, which I do include as part of the audit notes.

We also have a more generic version of the checklist, which can be used for any process. Guess I could have attached that too I also have a summary question sheet I use during auditor training, perhaps that will help, so I'll attach that too!