By the way, let me throw one more question out there.... when our auditor was last here, back in November or so, doing our hopefully FINAL audit to QS, she mentioned that it was a REQUIREMENT that an audit checklist be utilized. I told her I didn't think that was true, but at the time I didn't have a moment to look it up. Sure enough (it's difficult always being right
) the standard says it's a "should" not a shall.
We've never utilized audit checklists, and with the move AWAY from Procedure audits to Process audits, I'm even less inclined to put them into place. I was approaching this from the angle where the Mgmt Rep would maintain a "master checklist" each audit cycle of the clauses in the standard to make sure we hit them all during the audit cycle, but that's a rather laborious task for me to complete post-audit and I can't find any real value in doing so.
Has anyone here who has made it through a TS upgrade audit successfully argued AGAINST having an audit checklist, and if so, how?
How did you then answer to the "organization shall audit it's quality management system to verify compliance with this technical spec" thingee? Do you have your QMS listed as a SEPARATE process in your system?
Ralphie, you're a LIFESAVER! Thanks!!! 