Audit week and the hunt begins
Your certification body's auditor is due in a fortnight. They will choose a sample of jobs and ask to see the records: the quote, the design or service record, the certificate, the engineer's competence evidence, the calibration of the test equipment used and any complaint related to the job. Your quality manager starts assembling folders. Certificates are in one place, training certificates in another, calibration certificates in a drawer, and the complaints log is a spreadsheet nobody has updated since spring.
On audit day, the auditor picks a job not in the folder. It takes forty minutes to find the records.
Why audit evidence is scattered
The records an auditor asks for are produced by different parts of the business, at different times, in different systems. Your quality procedures describe what should exist, but nothing links the procedure to the actual record.
- Job records, certificates, training and calibration are held separately.
- Engineer competence evidence is filed by person, not linked to the jobs they did.
- Test equipment used on a job is not recorded, so calibration cannot be traced.
- Complaints and corrective actions are tracked in a spreadsheet.
- Preparation for audits happens in bursts, not continuously.
What your certification requires is set by your scheme and your own quality procedures, and interpreting them is for your quality manager. We build the register that makes the evidence findable.
The cost of a scramble
Weeks of the quality manager's time before every audit, taken from other work. Stress for the office. Gaps found in the audit that were really gaps in finding records, not in doing the work. And a sense that quality is an event twice a year rather than part of how the business runs.
An evidence register linked to your real records
We build an evidence register that connects each job to the records your quality procedures say it should have.
- Your quality procedures are mapped to evidence types: for a service visit, the visit record, certificate, engineer, equipment used and any complaint.
- Each job is linked to its evidence automatically from your job, certificate and document systems, including the engineer who attended.
- Engineers' competence records, such as training and qualifications with expiry dates, are held in one place and linked to each engineer.
- Test equipment is registered with calibration dates, and engineers record which instruments they used on each visit, so calibration can be traced to the job.
- Complaints and corrective actions are logged against jobs and tracked to closure.
- For any job, a single screen shows every piece of evidence, and gaps are highlighted. A sample pack can be exported for the auditor.
| Auditor asks for | Found today in | Found after in |
|---|---|---|
| Job records and certificate | Different folders | The job's evidence screen |
| Engineer competence | Training files by person | Linked from the job |
| Calibration of equipment used | Drawer, if traceable | Instrument linked to the job |
| Complaints | Old spreadsheet | Logged against the job |
Audit day with the register
The auditor picks a job from the list. The quality manager opens it: visit record, certificate, the engineer's current training records, the two instruments used with calibration certificates in date, and no complaints. The auditor picks another, and another. Each takes a moment. A gap is found on one job, where the instrument used was not recorded; it is a real finding, and the register shows it was an exception rather than a pattern.
What you end up with
Audit preparation that happens as a by-product of normal work. A quality manager who can spend time improving processes instead of assembling folders. Gaps that are visible and dealt with between audits. And evidence that makes your firm's quality visible to customers and tenders too.
Is audit preparation like this for you?
- Audit preparation takes weeks of one person's time.
- Evidence for a job is spread across several places.
- You cannot trace which test equipment was used on a job.
- The complaints log is not kept up to date.
- Auditors' random samples cause a hunt.