Internal audits not completed - Is it acceptable to write a corrective action?

[C Emmons]

I ran into a situation that I am not sure how to handle. I have 20 facilities that I am required to audit at least once a year. I had four scheduled for Nov and 4 sched for DEC when my company cut all travel until after January. Obviously, I am not going to get the audits completed. Is it acceptable to write a corrective action state the reason they were not completed a apply an acceptable corrective action to ensure they are all completed in 2003?

Anyone else ever have something like this happen?

 

[Angela-2007]

No, it is not acceptable. Management should be providing the proper resources to help the company be compliant. That means they should be making sure that the ability travel is there.

Angela

 

[C Emmons]

Hi Angela,

Not that I dont agree with you I do. However, resources were obviously the issue, cut cost, crunch, cash flow, what ever...Whats done is done and now I am trying to figure out how to handle the situation. Any suggestions?

 

[Angela-2007]

Are you saying that your company has twenty facilities to audit or that you have twenty suppliers to audit? Elaborate.

Angela

 

[shane]

I think your right on target. After all, what else can you do? The best strategy is to document the cause of missing the audits, and then get into the sites you missed as soon as the travel restrictions are lifted. Also, if it's possible, you may want to look at re-writing the yearly audit requirement to allow you more flexability when things like budget crunches come up.

Shane

 

[C Emmons]

I'm sorry, my company has 20 individual sites to audit (internal audits, I completed 12 so far but did not get the remaining 8 completed.

 

[db]

You are right in that what was done is done. You probably need to take a hit on that. Angela's comment is right on as well. Even though resources are often real problems, top managment must ensure the resources are available to maintain the QMS (6.1). However, resources might be more than just travel authorization...

. Is it acceptable to write a corrective action state the reason they were not completed a apply an acceptable corrective action to ensure they are all completed in 2003?

I think the corrective action should include some method of removing travel from the equation. Perhaps training local folks, so they can audit when necessary. Perhaps contracting with outside contractors to conduct the audits when necessary. Perhaps it involves finding other companies near your other plants who would be willing to trade internal audits.

 

[Angela-2007]

What does your procedure say? I might would consider revising it to add in loopholes for situations like these. Then I guess you have no other choice but to do the corrective action.

Angela

 

[SteelMaiden]

db said:

I think the corrective action should include some method of removing travel from the equation.

I think that db has a very valid point here. If you have 20 sites to audit every year, you must really be on the road a lot? I am making an assumption here that you are like the (lead/only?) auditor for the whole corp???

Can you get internal auditors at the sites, and maybe do a "corp." internal audit on each individual site every 3 yrs? that way, you could stagger the site visits to 7/yr and still hit each site within the 3 year certification period?

How close are your sites to one another? Can they combine 2 or more sites to get an audit team together and help one another out?

I have seen lots of years where travel was restricted, as a matter of fact, several of our div's are under travel restriction now. I wouldn't want to risk the possibility of getting cut off in the middle of the audit schedule.

Do your CA, at least that shows your registrar that you are not afraid to face the music and good luck, let us know how you solve it, OK?

 

[C Emmons]

Ok here it goes. I am pretty much the lead auditor for the entire system. I trained one guy (who was the one I generally travel with to help). In the past it had not been a problem. This year, I spent alot of time in the office, preparing and writing to transition to the new standard. In July I realized we were going to run into some problems and jumped up and down until they let me train two other people in the field. The problem with training people in the field is they are generally small facilities A manager and several drivers...However, they could handle a couple close to their region. Shortly after they were trained, the crunch occurred and travel restriction enforced. My thought for the corrective action was to state the above as well as past patterns indicate a fall in business toward the end of the year and keep facilities off the schedule for October thru December of 2003. I just dont know if an auditor would write a major if we alredy identified the problem and were addressing it.