Posts Tagged ‘Audit’
Auditing Your Quality Policy
The quality policy and its effective deployment can only be assessed based on the overall results of the audit.
Audit methods should include:
- Interviewing Top Management to understand their approach and commitment to quality.
- Evaluating, through the records of management review, the commitment and involvement of Top Management in the establishment, implementation, monitoring and updating of the quality policy.
- Determine whether Management has effectively “translated” the quality policy into understandable words and guidelines at all levels of the organization, with corresponding objectives at each applicable function / level.
- Conducting interviews with personnel to verify if they have the required awareness, understanding and knowledge of the way the organization’s quality policy as it relates to their own job, apart from the terms used by such people to express their understanding. Do they know how their job effects the quality of the products and ultimately customer satisfaction?
- Look for evidence of effective distribution of the quality policy by appropriate communication.
Food Safety Supplier Audits
The National Food Processors Association (NFPA) has announced plans to launch a new Food Safety and Quality Systems Supplier Audit Program as a means of coordinating the audits of food manufacturing facilities and their suppliers.
NFPA developed the program after learning that some suppliers undergo as many as 20 audits or more for their facilities, each with different forms and standards. Scheduled for phased implementation next year, the voluntary program will provide a means for companies to apply uniform, industry-wide standards to suppliers rather than standards and requirements of their own. As a result, a single NFPA audit could conceivably satisfy the requirements for several processors, thereby eliminating the need for duplicate audits.
A 26-company task force of NFPA members, including Pillsbury and Kraft, designed the basic elements of the program, including audit standards and auditor expertise. NFPA noted that the program will judge the adequacy and performance in the areas of “quality-related management responsibility and prerequisite programs, HACCP-based food safety programs, production controls, quality management systems and regulatory considerations.”
Supplier Quality Management
Due to recent economic, safety and security issues, supplier quality management has emerged as one of the leading business practices in recent years. Today it is imperative for manufacturers to make significant investments in systems and processes to improve supplier quality. For instance, companies in the aerospace, food, and industrial products arena, need to preserve their preferred supplier status to continue to be considered for future business. As a result, they are under pressure to ensure that their products continue to meet or exceed acceptable quality levels and Corrective Action thresholds set by their customers. Therefore, managing their supplier’s quality is mandatory for these companies.
Supplier Auditing is an excellent tool to ensure that suppliers are following the processes and procedures that you agreed to during the selection processes. The supplier audit identifies non-conformances in manufacturing process, shipment process, engineering change process, invoicing process and quality process at the supplier. Once the audit is completed, the supplier and customer jointly identify corrective actions which must be implemented by the supplier within an agreed-upon timeframe. Continued surveillance audits ensure that these corrective actions have been successfully implemented.