There should no surprises in an exit meeting for the quality management representative concerning what findings were found during the course of an audit. Why? Because your lead auditor should have kept you informed throughout the audit process. Why? Because, once a finding is raised no matter what the classification, the auditor should at that point receive agreement from the auditee and / or the management representative, that they have accurately discovered the finding with the supporting objective evidence. The only time there might ever be a surprise is when the audit team collaborate their findings, they may find an adverse trend requiring the finding to be escalated. If this happens, the lead auditor should advise the management representative immediately so that the situation can be agreed to or mitigated by providing additional evidence.
And why would they want to do any of the above? Well it is their brief as third party auditors to find conformance and in my mind, to mitigate the severity of findings if they can. This does not mean you get to argue the point, every point, every interpretation, it just means that once brought to your attention, you can find mutual agreement on the finding, the evidence and the severity / classification.
And how would you know that? Your certification body should / must have published criteria around this so that you can react accordingly. But that is another blog.
previous blogs;
http://johnmasonstuff.blogspot.com
http://john-mason-stuff.blogspot.com/
No comments:
Post a Comment