Re: Should the Registrar write a NC on something that was found during the Internal A
Thank for providing your insight, and it is valuable information and I'm sure it will help other Covers.
Coury,
My initial response would be 'no' to the question, based on years of implementing and being audited to ISO, QS, AS, TS, NADCAP and even some of the oldies such as Ford Q1. To further qualify; the auditor's response depends on his/her level of experience and your ability to defend your position...unfortunate but true. Those of us who are career quality management often are looking for the simple YES/NO response, whereas this specific issue comes preloaded with multiple dynamics.
An external auditor will generally make their findings independent of the internal audit process. If it is later discovered and brought to the attention of the external auditor that a similar finding exists within the internal audit process, then they typically will not write an identical finding. Once again, this depends on the experience of the auditor, the severity of the finding and if evidence suggests that lapses exist in the corrective action process.
Failure to address root cause during the corrective action process is a very serious issue and in fact, demonstrates that corrective action is ineffective. I suspect that other indicators exist to support the auditor's findings as the CA process is not limited to customer complaints or internal audits. Normally, any metric not meeting goal requires some form of corrective action (C&PA, Management Review Inputs & Outputs, Operating Metrics, etc...), consequently there is a target rich environment available to an auditor to determine if root cause is being addressed throughout the organization.
If you can demonstrate to the auditor that this failure is actively and aggressively being addressed, then they would likely view it differently. Evidence may include an immediate increase in audit frequency (a requirement based on severity of issue), output or an action plan demonstrating management committment, immediate inprocess and ongoing root cause training, the use of external resources, etc... If however, there is no evidence of action in progress, then I would tend to vote 'Yes' in support of the auditor and wipe the sweat from my brow knowing how close to a major non-conformance I was...
Ultimately "Should this be allowed?"
As much as it pains me, I think it must be.
My initial response would be 'no' to the question, based on years of implementing and being audited to ISO, QS, AS, TS, NADCAP and even some of the oldies such as Ford Q1. To further qualify; the auditor's response depends on his/her level of experience and your ability to defend your position...unfortunate but true. Those of us who are career quality management often are looking for the simple YES/NO response, whereas this specific issue comes preloaded with multiple dynamics.
An external auditor will generally make their findings independent of the internal audit process. If it is later discovered and brought to the attention of the external auditor that a similar finding exists within the internal audit process, then they typically will not write an identical finding. Once again, this depends on the experience of the auditor, the severity of the finding and if evidence suggests that lapses exist in the corrective action process.
Failure to address root cause during the corrective action process is a very serious issue and in fact, demonstrates that corrective action is ineffective. I suspect that other indicators exist to support the auditor's findings as the CA process is not limited to customer complaints or internal audits. Normally, any metric not meeting goal requires some form of corrective action (C&PA, Management Review Inputs & Outputs, Operating Metrics, etc...), consequently there is a target rich environment available to an auditor to determine if root cause is being addressed throughout the organization.
If you can demonstrate to the auditor that this failure is actively and aggressively being addressed, then they would likely view it differently. Evidence may include an immediate increase in audit frequency (a requirement based on severity of issue), output or an action plan demonstrating management committment, immediate inprocess and ongoing root cause training, the use of external resources, etc... If however, there is no evidence of action in progress, then I would tend to vote 'Yes' in support of the auditor and wipe the sweat from my brow knowing how close to a major non-conformance I was...
Ultimately "Should this be allowed?"
As much as it pains me, I think it must be.


