D
An arrogant and prejudiced opinion here.
I think you are right in that the auditor is "trying to show something". I agree also with the observation that there is no shall which was violated. The fact that the NC was written on an internal audit still remains. The report has probably been filed neatly into a slot somewhere waiting for your CAR. The point that your engineer knew nothing about the procedure is certainly valid. He is working in an area where the manager considered it important enough to write a procedure, but not important enough to tell the employees it existed. Even without a shall, doing an internal audit I would recognize there is something not quite right here. My guess is that Jim is right, you probably don't need a procedure. I also agree that we tend to write way too many procedures that aren't really necessary.
Why not take the opportunity to review your practice of writing "how we work" procedures? If you find you do need the procedures, review your practice of not informing the employees you have them.
The US auditor works for the same company as you and isn't the enemy. The intent of an internal audit is to help identify areas for improvement. There has to be some validity in the statement that something needs some sort of improvement here. Who cares if the auditor cites the wrong or non-existant requirement? If it makes sense to fix it, why argue and upset the auditor and the corporate office?
After all, you surely must realize any arguement on your part would be futile. It may be an international standard, but the only intelligence in it came from our side of the pond. Why else do you suppose you Europeans are trying to write a new version?
Dave
I think you are right in that the auditor is "trying to show something". I agree also with the observation that there is no shall which was violated. The fact that the NC was written on an internal audit still remains. The report has probably been filed neatly into a slot somewhere waiting for your CAR. The point that your engineer knew nothing about the procedure is certainly valid. He is working in an area where the manager considered it important enough to write a procedure, but not important enough to tell the employees it existed. Even without a shall, doing an internal audit I would recognize there is something not quite right here. My guess is that Jim is right, you probably don't need a procedure. I also agree that we tend to write way too many procedures that aren't really necessary.
Why not take the opportunity to review your practice of writing "how we work" procedures? If you find you do need the procedures, review your practice of not informing the employees you have them.
The US auditor works for the same company as you and isn't the enemy. The intent of an internal audit is to help identify areas for improvement. There has to be some validity in the statement that something needs some sort of improvement here. Who cares if the auditor cites the wrong or non-existant requirement? If it makes sense to fix it, why argue and upset the auditor and the corporate office?
After all, you surely must realize any arguement on your part would be futile. It may be an international standard, but the only intelligence in it came from our side of the pond. Why else do you suppose you Europeans are trying to write a new version?
Dave
:truce:
