Guerrilla Tactics to Pass any QMS Audit – Tactic 4
Williams’ Law 4
Find your own dirty laundry.
Guerrilla Tactic 4: Internal Audit Strategy
While a robust Quality Management System (QMS) internal audit system is a bit of a given in a good quality program, there are some strategies that, if employed, will provide a number of intangible benefits during any quality systems audit.
The key with audits is to find your own dirty laundry; you don’t want your customer/registrar to find things that you should have discovered during internal audits. 
The other “soft” benefit of audits is that every single one is an opportunity to properly condition the workforce. It is easy for the management representative or department supervisor to have all the right answers, so encouraging auditors & customers to interact with the employees actually doing the job will demonstrate the strength and competency of the workforce, and the quality management system. The internal audit program should be used to help condition employees to be comfortable in this situation.
- Audit trainer should be formally “lead-assessor” trained
- No “conflict of interest” auditing
- Cannot audit your own process
- Train auditors to “see as the customer sees”
- Complete system cycle each 6-months
- Calibrate with 6-month surveillance audits
- Closed-loop follow-up audit for findings
- Develop procedure specific audits
- Integrate common system level questions into every audit
- Audit employees ability to recite the Quality Policy and Battle Cry
- Audit line workers, not supervisors
- Supervisor can assist, but not answer for employees
Contact TRAC
Contact me to start our Guerrilla Training before your next audit.
Steve: 920-841-3478
Steve@tracQMS.com