Re: New to Calibration - Four Questions
Yeah - One of the things that keyed me on this was ReworkIT's post on color coding, which I had forgotten about but that I have seen. I also remembered a client I suggested a simplified system for and we had a talk about why they designed such a time consuming mt&e calibration system - It had come about after a very expensive recall. As they explained it to me, I could better understand their reasoning.
Auditor wise, I guess it's been that way for so many years that I'm used to it. I've dealt with so many over the years that I know it is just the way it is. One has to be ready. The first thing I did when a company would want me to work for them as a consultant in an implementation project was to confirm that they understood that they would have to have a dedicated person for me to work with as it was essentially a knowledge transfer/training on the related standard(s). That way when an auditor went rogue they had someone there who was ready to say "show me where it says that" and/or "you're here to audit, not consult" in a polite but firm way.
I also can understand the temptation as an auditor to want to say things like "... Well, I've seen companies do it like this..." because the auditor wants to try to help. I even admit I did that from time to time. That said, I have run into some really hard to work with auditors over the years, some of my experiences I have posted about (such as the "ineffective internal audits" finding).
But, I think most auditors are just trying to do their job as best they can.