A Day in the Life of ControlTek's Internal Quality Auditor

“Your shadows are there to show you what you are not. Shine a light on them and they will disappear.”

The job of Internal Quality Auditor is a lot like a Missile Guidance System. A guidance system locks on a target and continually corrects its trajectory of a missile based on where that missile needs to go versus where it is really going. An Internal Quality Auditor has a similar function. We look at our key processes as described in our Quality System documentation, and try to see what they are actually doing compared to what we say they do. Whatever gaps we find we try to shine a light on, and correct our “trajectory”.

At Controltek, each Internal Quality Auditor is a volunteer member of a cross-disciplinary team. Each auditor team member brings to his or her audits the unique perspective of their regular full time position. Document Control Specialist is the hat I usually wear, and it is with that mindset that I approach each audit.

I often focus on the “paper trail” and the records of processes, because that is my main area of expertise. I know where all the records are, as do the other Document Control Specialists, because we put them there. We route Quality Documents for approval. We route revised documents for signatures. We know the ins and outs of the Engineering Change Notice system because we are one of the groups responsible for putting those changes in our information delivery systems.

 Each auditor is assigned an audit based on an ISO: 9001 section. It is the Internal Auditor’s job to schedule the audit with managers and team members of the processes being audited.  Our family style corporate culture makes each employee comfortable to approach during audits, and getting honest answers and helpful suggestions is usually not an issue. If possible and appropriate, we review our audit findings with those audited. Based on our findings we create a report that is forwarded to our Quality Manager who summarizes the audit teams reports, makes suggestions for improvements and, if necessary, creates an official Corrective and Preventive Action (CAPA) request. The corrective action is assigned to area managers with a due date, and progress on corrective action resolution is tracked in regular CAPA team meetings.