What's the funniest thing you've ever seen during an audit?

R

Randy Stewart

#11
In the metal fab area of a shop, they used a good deal of mineral sprits to wipe down the metal. While being audited, for 14001, one of the associates was asked about the fire hazzard lockers. We had spent some coin on 15 - 20 of these lockers so it wasn't just a cabinet painted red.

The associate walks over to the locker and while opening the door - Lights a cigarette!!!!
The auditor, who has lost all color from her face, is starting to write the NC while moving backwards. But the locker is empty.
Seems it was a new work station they were setting up and had not yet stocked the lockers.
 
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W

wilsonmm

#13
The funniest would take far too much text to explain, and isn’t really fit for publishing, but another is amusing in its own right. I was inspecting some small support buildings on an Air Force test range. I routinely use a small circuit tester to ensure AC plugs are wired correctly when doing safety checks (correct wiring lights the two outside neon lamps). On the way out the door of one building I stuck the hand-held checker into a wall mounted power strip, and when I did the strip EXPLODED with a loud POW!, fire shot out, and it began smoking. Once I recovered from the shock of what happened, I naturally made notes about it and cited the strip for having shorted out when tested.

A couple of days after the report was published, the manager of the site called me quite irate about that finding saying he couldn’t believe I had written it up. I laughed and asked him what he expected when it had blown up in a routine test.

He then stated, “Well you shouldn't write up something YOU caused. It never would have blown up if YOU hadn’t stuck that tester in it!”

(He was serious (and didn't last long in that position either))
 
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W

Warranty_Guy - 2012

#14
Funny Auditing Story

Well i have been part of many many audits on both sides and there are two that stand out in my mind os being really a sign of the times for the old QS9000.

After completing a document review aduit we went to the floor at 10:00 am and continued to audit the floor for work instruction compliances and control plan frequencies.
After being on the floor for half an hour we saw operators filling in the II sheets for the regular checks, Of course we go over and review there findings and low and behold each one of them was filing out there findings for the next three checks.

We were there at 10:00 am and they had completed there checks for the entire day until 3:00 pm. When asked why, they answered by saying that the product never changes so why not just get ahead.

Made for an intresting debate with my management team.
 

Wes Bucey

Quite Involved in Discussions
#15
Warranty_Guy said:
After being on the floor for half an hour we saw operators filling in the II sheets for the regular checks, Of course we go over and review there findings and low and behold each one of them was filing out there findings for the next three checks.

We were there at 10:00 am and they had completed there checks for the entire day until 3:00 pm. When asked why, they answered by saying that the product never changes so why not just get ahead.

Made for an intresting debate with my management team.
Interestingly, one of my correspondents told me last week about a federal indictment
(http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/whitecollarcrime_blog/2005/06/military_parts_.html)
Indictment in pdf format here
http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/pae/News/Pr/2005/jun/anco.pdf

as a result of a similar situation.

The basics:
a manufacturer of titanium tubing for a Navy plane built by a joint venture of Boeing and Bell "fudged" the inspection reports.

there was a plane accident resulting in the grounding of the entire fleet of the planes.

The titanium tubing was NOT the proximate cause of the accident, but during the course of the investigation, some nonconforming tubing WAS found. A couple of lower level Quality inspectors at the tubing manufacturer pled out and offered to testify against higher level executives that it was the practice of the manufacturer to skip the actual tests and just fill out the reports.

I, of course, wrote back
The press stories are informative in that they say the material was NOT at fault for the crash. There is a good chance that excellent attorneys can beat this case. There is an even better chance than an "adequate" attorney can work a deal for a "wrist slap" for the defendants - it's obvious there is no money in the defendants' pockets or they would have never been taken into custody. Well-paid attorneys would have worked a deal for them to surrender for a preliminary hearing and be released on bail. Since there is probably no money, the fines are just inflammatory rhetoric on the part of the feds; the fines are only levied by the judge if there is a chance of recovering them.

You can bet your sweet bippy the prosecutors looked into nuclear and any other customers they could find out about in an attempt to find more charges.

Reading between the lines and interposing my own experience, I think these guys under indictment are just fools who cut corners, being confident the manufacturing methods were adequate to prevent failure without going into extra cost to perform all the prescribed inspections and functional tests. (It's easy to lull yourself into that attitude when all the tests you DO perform come out clean.) The bigger point is they are probably just scapegoats thrown on the sacrificial pyre to save Boeing and Bell from having their bacon fried.

These guys certainly deserve a dope slap or two and maybe a year or two in prison to serve as a deterrent to others. The fact remains countless small and large businesses are guilty of these kinds of "shortcuts" every day. A large part of the reason is they didn't have the strength of character to charge a fair price in the beginning to make an adequate profit, so they decided to chisel some profit elsewhere in the process.

Part of the blame has to stay with Boeing and Bell which (in my guesstimation) whipsawed a relatively new manufacturer into giving them "preferential" pricing without adequately assuring themselves the manufacturer had the capability, capacity, and character (as well as adequate capital) to make their product at the price bargained with no hiccups.

The information in this count:
23. In or about August 2002, titanium tubing manufactured by defendant ANCO-TECH that had been installed in the back-up brake system of a V-22 Osprey failed a routine test performed by Boeing. As a result, Boeing and Bell isolated their supplies of titanium tubing manufactured by defendant ANCO-TECH, and performed a functional pressure test on samples of each heat lot of tubing. Approximately 25% of the ANCO-TECH tubing failed the pressure test.
only discusses what was discovered in the tenth or eleventh year of the contract. Was any testing done prior to this? If yes, what did it find? Beyond omitting tests, did Anco change its manufacturing system to account for such gross failure? When did that happen? Why did that happen? Can the problem be traced to a faulty billet of titanium? There are as many open questions as a result of this indictment as there are answered ones.
I found this reference in Google:
http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/whitecollarcrime_blog/2005/06/military_parts_.html
 
A

amanbhai

#16
What's the funniest thing you've ever seen during an audit

I had been escorting the auditor in 1998 for ISO 9002 registration audit when an auditor (during factory audit) asked what are our preparations in case of fire. We told him what our preparations are though we do not expect it would happen for some reason. Very next day we had fire in our factory.
 
R

Randy Stewart

#17
Laura,

It was about 3 years ago now. I don't know what the shop is doing now but when I left you could still smoke on the shop floor (very large stamping plant) but not in the offices.
 
L

Laura M

#18
Wow - I"ve been gone for 6 years + and even then at least 2 years prior were 'smoke free' - times are changing.
 
S

Scott G

#19
Wes Bucey said:
Interestingly, one of my correspondents told me last week about a federal indictment......

Wes,

Thats not funny....... but thanks for the link. Very interesting story. I have been looking for something like this, to scare management about a cavaliar approach to c of c's
 
L

little__cee

#20
Smoking=yes

We have smoking in the shop areas as I write this. As soon as you walk out the office doors smoking is permitted.
 
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