Hi, you've probably heard of audits before,
but you may wonder what internal audit and corrective actions are
and why they're important.
An internal audit is a self-check of your system that should be conducted regularly
to ensure your processes and procedures are current and effective.
It allows you to identify and rectify issues in your manufacturing site
or essential documentation before a third-party audit.
When a non-conformance is identified either as part of your internal audit or an external audit,
or as part of a consumer complaints investigation,
you must have a procedure that captures how you will investigate the non-conformance and implement corrective actions.
Complacency can be an issue in the manufacturing environment
as we go about our day to day without ever considering if everything is in the correct order.
Because to us, the manufacturing environment may seem to be compliant with food safety standards,
however, we may not even notice some changes that may have occurred in the establishment.
For example,
when you're writing an essay,
you may have asked another person to read it for grammar and spelling checks.
Most of the time they return the essay with recommendations and grammatical fixes.
While you've reviewed your work several times,
by requesting for another person to review your work,
you increase the possibility of errors being captured.
The same applies to internal audits.
Where possible, internal audits should be conducted by individuals that are not working in the same environment.
By allowing someone foreign to the area to conduct internal audits,
they're likely to ask questions to understand the procedure and processes they encounter.
In doing so, they're more likely to pick up errors that you may not have detected.
For internal audits, you must have a documented procedure which should include;
How often do you conduct internal audits?
Who is responsible for conducting audits?
Which area and element will be covered as part of your audit?
Have you covered all areas of your establishment as part of your internal audit procedure?
Does this include all auditable elements and process steps from receival of raw materials through to storage,
manufacturing, packaging and distribution?
Your establishment may have a schedule for internal audits so that not everything is planned to be reviewed in one day.
Instead, each element and area is reviewed during a certain period.
This approach allows for flexibility when conducting internal audits.
Some factors which may impact your ability to conduct internal audits during certain times of the year
may include; unavailability of staff during holiday periods,
changes in business demand or focus, changes in key personnel,
pandemic travel restrictions or maintenance related to closure periods.
Your corrective action procedure should include a root cause investigation,
an expected timeline to implement corrective actions outcomes,
responsible persons for implementation,
a way to determine if the implemented actions are effective,
and an escalation process to senior management.
for occasions where corrective actions are not implemented or actioned by the required time frame.
A root cause analysis can be conducted using various methodologies.
A common approach to root cause investigations is the use of five whys methodology.
This methodology encourages the user to keep investigating
why a certain activity occurred a minimum of five times.
By continuing to ask the question as to what led to this outcome,
the investigation continues to the origin of the non-conformance.
It's recommended that you consider rotating your auditors
when scheduling and planning your regular internal audits,
to allow a different perspective, a fresh set of eyes and a different scope.