Well, it's time for me to do a brain dump. Keep in mind that it would be unethical for me to give details of any exam questions, but I will give general information and advice to prepare for the exam based on my experience.
I guess the first thing I have to say about the testing is that you need to either know the information well, or be able to look it up quickly. You won't have time to search a lot for information. Make sure that you have hard copies of TS 16949 and the Rules 3rd edition. You might want to highlight key information and put tabs/sticky notes on the pages to help you find sections. If I was going to do it again, I'd make separate copies of the tables of contents to look at quickly to find sections. I also printed (and studied) copies of the Sanctioned Interpretations, FAQs, and Rules Errata from the IATF website.
You're not allowed to have MSA, SPC, or
FMEA manuals in the room, so you'd better know them well for the Knowledge Assessments. I was pretty confident in my knowledge, so I just started looking at the ADP pre-studies and modules the day before I took it. If I was going to do it again, I'd invest some time and go through them thoroughly in the weeks before taking the ADP.
Many of the questions give a lot of options and ask you to select all of the right answers. They were fond of giving choices where part of the answer was correct, but part of it was wrong. Carefully read each answer fully to ensure you don't miss something.
A couple of you were asking about NC management. For nonconformities, you must know the three parts of a nonconformity stated in the Rules. There are several places where you're required to drag sections of text into boxes. Before you start, know what the actual nonconformity is. Make sure you pick the clause that matches the nonconformity statement, and that you identify the right objective evidence to support it. Make sure you know what constitutes a Major vs. Minor nonconformity - you'll be asked to classify most of the nonconformities you write. Know the timing to address Major nonconformities vs. Minor. Know when you need to do a follow-up visit. Know what it means to have a nonconformity open but 100% resolved.
In the Application sections, there's a lot of information in the attached documents about the organization you're auditing. Read the questions
before you start looking at the documents - this will help you find the specific information needed to answer the questions. Always think about priorities such as the customer-specific requirements, the company metrics/results, and how they should be aligned. Know when remote functions are audited and when they aren't. Know which location(s) are audited first. Know how much audit time is allowed for preparing the audit report.
Congratulation Howste!
it's gruelling right?
Yes it was! To me some of the most frustrating parts were related to the test platform software itself. A couple of examples:
1) I didn't know how many questions there were, so it was difficult to budget my time. When I started the first Knowledge Assessment section it showed page 1/10. I had 40 minutes to complete the section, so I took my time. When I finished page 10/10 instead of finishing, there was another section with 10 pages!
Fortunately I had enough time to finish anyway. The Application Assessment sections didn't list the number of questions at all. I finally just paged through all of the pages without answering them until I reached the end so that I knew how many questions there would be. Then I went back to the beginning, and I could better budget my time.
2) There are a lot of pages of client data that needed to be referenced, and the navigation system is very awkward. You can only have one document open at a time, so it's difficult to compare information. I found that you can open and minimize documents, but you can only have two minimized at once. Page Up and Page Down keys don't work to quickly move through the information. Word searching isn't possible. Sometimes when I moved the mouse, the reference document would jump and move with it. :mg: The Plexus Turtle Viewer tool is frustrating to find information in quickly even though I use turtle diagrams on a regular basis. On some pages the Turtle Viewer wasn't available when I wanted to refer to it.
/rant off
I hope this is useful to anyone taking the ADP. Good luck!
