Seeing how other auditors work is a very valuable for new auditors.  Even for experienced (or old) auditors like myself, I enjoy working with other professionals for many reasons: get new tips, new areas to look into, new approaches.

Expanding from my post from June 10, 2011 “Reviewing Documents“, here is an example.  I have attached a one page work instruction with my comments in handwriting.  This was a real work instruction, from a long time ago that I found in my files.  There are no identifiable traces back to the original company (see my disclaimer) and they have since changed the original document (some of the changes due to me).  My comments are not usually so neatly written, but I wanted you to get a sense of what I was thinking and why I had the issues that I did (and to also be able to read it).

The criteria for this audit was a OHS standard and this document was suppose to identify safety controls from the warehouse.  So there are no specific requirements in the standard that this work instruction is to meet, except for the general requirement to control safety.  First try and read the work instruction without looking at my comments.  Then see if your comments match mine.  The next step is the hard part, how do we communicate this clearly and succinctly to the auditee?  I’ll share that with you in the next blog, but in the meantime, try yourself, feel free to post your results.

Auditing Document Review Example 1