Guerrilla Tactics to Pass any QMS Audit – Tactic 10 Tips To Reverse a Finding

Williams’ Law 10

The more “wins” you can bank with an auditor/customer, the greater the chance they will write-off a negative observation as an “isolated anomaly”.

Conversely…

The more “findings” an auditor/customer identifies, the deeper they will dig in all subsequent areas.

The key to reversing an auditor’s QMS audit finding is on-the-spot corrective action. Responsive, ultra-prompt action is required as well as the aforementioned political savvy of the Management Representative in administering the techniques discussed below.

Guerrilla Tactic 10: Techniques to Reverse a QMS Audit Finding

Page Swap

A Page Swap is a technique that can be employed to correct minor mistakes or omissions in a procedure. This technique is perfectly legal as long as there is a Page Swap clause in the Document Control procedure outlining the rational and rules for its use.
If an error and/or omission is identified by an auditor, utilizing the Page Swap technique to immediately correct the error and present the auditor with a corrected procedure before he/she finishes the audit will generally result in a non-finding.

Situations that allow a Page Swap:

• Swapping a single page in a QMS procedure
• Does not require re-approval of the entire procedure
• Page content integrity remains intact
• Page numbering does not change
• Typos
• Minor wording changes
• Missing word/phrase
• Where obvious intent was implied

Instant Procedure Revision

On-the-spot procedure revisions are the reason that key employees and procedure signatories must be present and available for all major audits and customer visits. The ability to rapidly change, approve and distribute a procedure revision in reaction to an auditor’s finding will be the difference between a formal finding and a clean audit.

If you missed any of the prior Guerrilla Tactics you can find them all at https://tracqms.com/blog/.

Contact TRAC

Contract me to start our Guerrilla Training before your next audit.

Steve: 920-841-3478

Steve@tracQMS.com