In industry everyone is facing the audits and in future can be perform the quality audits. Therefore it is important to know the what are the steps consists in quality audit process.
This article gives you the practical 4 steps in Quality Audit task. It is the must have skill for quality engineers and also part of quality engineer roadmap.
Quality audit is an independent review conduct to compare the product or process or service quality performance with respect to standard.
An independent audit provides an unbiased picture of results. The usual purpose of quality audits is to provide assurance that :
- Plans for attaining quality are such that, quality will be achieve.
- Products are fit and safe for use.
- Laws and regulations need to follow.
- There is a conformance to specifications and standards.
- Provide accurate and adequate information on quality to all concerned.
The purpose of an audit is valuable to the organization, therefore it is very important to follow below steps consist in Quality Audit tasks.
Audit Initiation
The basic right to conduct audits is comes from the ‘Audit circular’, which has been approve by upper management. A specific audit is initiated on request of the manager or the process activity.
Audit Planning
The audit planning is the key to communicate and follow the audit process.
The planning consist of following points,
- Element of a plan must include scope definition and objective of audit.
- Identification of area/product/process
- Auditors
- A schedule including expected start and completion date
- Standard and audit documentations.
Overall the plan should be prepared to inform the activities details to Auditee and Auditor.
Audit Implementation
This phase involves collection, analysis and evaluation of actual fact/information and drawing of conclusion from these facts.
Audit Reporting
In the last step audit report is to be prepare by auditor.
The report is the final outcome and result. It should be balance. A common criticism to the audit report is the tendency for the report consist of non-conformities minor in nature.
A balanced report must determine the impact of non-conformity on activities. If an audit report only reports the non-conformity is something not acceptable to team.
It should mention some best practices, good observations and area for improvement. Such Audit report is good to present and happily accepted by team.
