While industry and regulatory standards help businesses reduce errors, deliver quality products, and optimize processes, manufacturing audits ensure your workers adhere to them.
Read on to learn more about factory audits and explore their benefits, types, and implementation. Furthermore, discover how digital audit tools and checklists streamline manufacturing and production audits.
Table of ContentsA manufacturing audit, also referred to as a production or factory audit, is a thorough assessment of all stages in a company’s operations, from raw material procurement to final product delivery. The primary goal is to check if the company meets the manufacturing SOPs and regulatory guidelines required for high-quality production. Regular audits can directly impact the bottom line as they help companies identify inefficiencies and potential risks that could lead to expensive downtime, reorders, or legal issues. Furthermore, they can optimize manufacturing processes, enhancing operational efficiency and boosting profits.
Depending on resources and complexity, manufacturing audits can be conducted internally by the company’s quality control team or outsourced to third-party auditors with expertise in relevant industry standards. Sometimes, customers can initiate audits to ensure their suppliers comply with regulatory standards and follow adequate manufacturing processes.
Although interconnected, process and product audits serve distinct purposes in quality control.
A process audit evaluates the effectiveness of your manufacturing processes. It examines adherence to procedures, documentation, and proper equipment use to identify inefficiencies, potential errors, and areas for improvement within the process.
Product audits, on the other hand, assess the quality of finished products against established specifications. This involves inspecting, testing, and measuring the product to ensure it meets all requirements to detect and address any non-conformities or defects in the final product.
Regular manufacturer audits offer insights related to operational efficiency and compliance that can be used to enhance quality and processes.
Here are the key benefits of manufacturing audits:
Here’s how digitizing audits fetched added benefits to HTS, a metallurgical heat-treating service:
Depending on the type of audit, the items on the factory compliance audit checklist would vary. For example, a system audit checklist would include questions related to quality control measures, ISO standards, process flow, and organizational structure.
A process audit checklist would have questions related to documentation protocols, resources, execution, monitoring, and process improvement.
Once the audit checklists are in place, scheduling the audit is the next step. It involves determining the date, time, and the audit site and notifying all the stakeholders – auditors, area personnel, etc.
As the name suggests, this is where the auditor visits the factory shop floor to perform the audit. Auditors may implement Lean Manufacturing strategies like Gemba Walks.
An effective manufacturing audit involves gathering all the data related to processes, SOPs, best practices, inefficiencies, workplace environment, and everything that fits within the scope of the audit.
For effective auditing, introduce best practices like:
Auditor App: Conduct streamlined digital audits online and offline on phones and tablets anywhere, anytime, with no paperwork.
Once the audit is complete, auditors have to meticulously compile all the findings – non-conformances, areas of improvement, staff performance, workflow assessment, etc. – into a report with clear actionable steps.
Comprehensive documentation helps businesses devise strategies aimed at improving manufacturing processes. They also offer insights into the impact of the previously implemented measures.
Furthermore, manufacturing audit reports also serve as a historical record against which you can measure your current and future audit results.
Inspection Report Software: With a digital audit app, you can generate pre-populated standardized audit reports in just one click.
After you have collated all the audit findings, analyze them to determine the necessary corrective measures. Thoroughly assess the audit reports to pinpoint the areas falling short in meeting the organizational, quality, or regulatory standards.
Based on the analysis and discussion with your team, develop a strategy to assign and resolve identified issues. The resolution process may involve
After determining the corrective measures, you are required to execute them systematically. Apart from delegation, the management should have a system to monitor the execution status of the corrective actions. Furthermore, the system should allow managers to take follow-ups and reassign the task in case of delays.
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A follow-up audit will help you assess the impact of the corrective actions undertaken after the initial audit.
It will help you determine how effectively changes have been implemented and if they are fetching the expected results.
Besides assessing the effect of the previous action plan, a follow-up audit will also help you identify areas of further development, thus making manufacturing audits a strategy for continuous improvement.
With GoAudits, you have an easy-to-use tool to streamline manufacturing audits and promote continuous improvement. Besides simplifying auditing the manufacturing process, with GoAudits you can:
With a rating of 4.8 stars on Capterra, GoAudits is trusted by some of the biggest names in the manufacturing industry.
» Customer Success Story: How businesses leverage GoAudits to save time and improve operations.
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