My take on the whole situation is that there are many issues at work here, and just as what happens when several weather systems collide, a super storm has emerged.
Darren Durney said:
I wrote a new Quality Manual for the company I work for and during my BSI audit we gained a non-conformance for no internal audits being done this was due to my predecessor who obviously did not do any.
As others have stated, this should have been more than a non-conformance. The whole purpose of internal audits is to assess conformance to requirements...the standard, the organization's internal requirements, customer requirements, etc.
While I give you points for your ability to get it to this level, the finding will add no value to your organization unless something is done.
Darren Durney said:
Now I have wrote an internal audit form up, the question I have is though as nobody understands or is clearly interested in quality unless there is a problem
Do folks understand and take an interest in having a job? If Customers become tired of dealing with substandard products/service, they will look elsewhere...and that impacts your organization's bottomline. No Customers = No Money = No Company = No Jobs. That's a harsh fact of business life. You may perhaps have a monopoly on the market right now, but what's status quo today will be "status no" tomorrow.
The whole concept of $$$ is usually enough to capture people's attention and assist in the awareness of why it's important to meet (customer) requirements....aka quality.
Darren Durney said:
how do I conduct this audit as it asks specific questions in relation to the system. Can you help me out a bit I have added my document for you to look at just incase I have maybe overdone it a bit.
With all due respect, I took one look at your form and immediately tossed it into my mental recycling box. It's complicated...confusing...and clinical. And that's from both an auditor and auditee standpoint.
Who is this form for?
Auditors need to have checklists ahead of time with questions and potential audit trails.
Auditees want a report stating what they were audited to and the findings (okay, some verbage on what they did well besides ordering a stellar lunch for everyone).
Two forms. Checklist and Report. One is for the Auditor...one is for the Auditee.
The Auditee doesn't want to know (again) what you looked at and the "Who" part ignores the confidientiality aspect of an audit - we're not supposed to say who said what (i.e., it's that whole finger-pointing thing we're trying to avoid). That stuff does not go into the report....it's for your checklist.
I strongly suggest you do a search in the Cove and you should find some checklists. If you don't however, here's a quick summary of my own - I can not attach due to confidientality:
- Header - obligatory audit info like names of auditors, who I spoke with, process being audited, blah blah blah
- A list of the 'shall' statements and - in italics - examples of potential audit trails specific to my organization.
- Checkboxes for S (Satisfactory), O (Opportunity for Improvement), F (Failure to Conform), NA (Not Applicable).
- Comments section - where I write my notes from the audit and type in my questions from my preparation stage (this shows how questions align with requirements and demonstrates that all 'shalls' have been audited).
Hope all this helps.