Our team at QEM help clients through the audit process all year round. As a result, we’re pretty clear on the ‘magic formula’ that makes for a successful audit. Want to know what they are?
Leadership that gets its hands dirty
The lonely figure of the ‘management rep’ of the old 9001 standard is long gone. These days, audits will not turn out well if you don’t have people at the helm who are willing to get stuck in. The boss and immediate reports have must know what’s happening with the quality management system and – crucially – how it works. In addition, the management team need to get into the habit of setting actions and objectives that the wider company can understand, aim for, and close off regularly. Clear, current, and shared objectives are key. It may sound like fiction, but we’ve witnessed situations in the field where one wide-eyed admin has had to think up company objectives on the hoof in the vain hope they’ll meet the standard requirements. You can imagine this doesn’t go well - don’t be that company.
Your documents and records in the right place
This is where our business management system isCompliant is invaluable. As part of the daily routine of running your business, all documents and records are uploaded to isCompliant, keeping everything ship-shape and Bristol-fashion, by default, every day. And what’s more, every update or revision is uploaded there too, so auditors don’t have to ask for updated registers, certificates, and the other gubbins vital to the audit. In the absence of isCompliant, you can still get your document storage into great shape with a little effort. Get the team together and decide on a central, shared folder where all documents are saved, so any one of you can put a hand on it in a hurry, from any computer.
Sorting out safety
At QEM Solutions, we’ve years of site experience, and we know that preparing for safety audits and inspections is particularly onerous, especially when deadlines are tight. To solve this problem for ourselves (and you), we created FactSafe, our cloud-based inspection/auditing software that enables engineers and inspectors to carry out inspections onsite more efficiently. Factsafe enables field operatives to save timestamped and geo-located evidence of critical project events using mobile devices. The system ensures that pre-determined checklists created are available onsite in “Fat Finger Apps” so that live data can be collected as and when the inspection is taking place. In addition to this, all of the data collected is immediately available to the relevant authorised stakeholders. Faster, more accurate and intelligent data, with photos too. And it’s easier than collating paper checklists, we can tell you.
Honesty
If your mum railed at you to tell the truth when you were a kid, and it’s stuck, you’ll be just fine. For example, a client may admit to an auditor that they had currently have no trained first aiders on site as one had left and two had lapsed their training. It’s likely that the audit will result in a minor non-conformity, but this could easily be addressed by booking a training course. Conceal something larger, like an outdated fire risk assessment in a 45001 audit, and the stakes are higher. So, to save time and stress, identify what you’ve swept under the carpet way before the auditor darkens your door. Ultimately, the auditor is not the enemy, but someone working with you to an end point – securing certification. To help make that happen, the auditor need facts, not fibs. Think collaborators, not antagonists.
Commitment to improving
The last quality that we note in businesses that audit successfully is that they have a thirst for continual improvement. They’re not just in it for getting the certification and forgetting about it. If your company adopts the habit of setting actions and objectives and, ultimately, gets a kick out of closing them off regularly, you’re well on your way to a successful audit. Heck, you might even enjoy it!
If you need tips for staying calm in an audit, you can read more here.