Every year, agricultural operations face challenges due to errors or defects in processes, impacting productivity and sustainability. As agriculture is a critical industry, ensuring quality through systematic audits and measurements is essential for operational success and safety.
Overview of Securing Prevention through Audit and Review
Error or defect prevention is the process of removing or controlling error/defect causes in the system. There are two major elements of this:
- Checking the system.
- Error/defect investigation and follow-up.
These have the same objectives – to find, record and report possible causes of error and to recommend future corrective action.
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Methods for Checking Agricultural Systems
There are six methods in general use:
1. Quality Audits and Reviews: These subject each area of an organisation’s activity to a systematic critical examination. Every component of the total system is included, i.e., quality policy, attitudes, training process, decision features, operating procedures, documentation. Audits and reviews, as in the field of accountancy, aim to disclose the strengths and weaknesses and the main areas of vulnerability or risk.
2. Quality Survey: A detailed, in-depth examination of a narrower field of activity, i.e., major key areas revealed by quality audits, individual plants, procedures or specific problems common to an organisation as a whole.
3. Quality Inspection: This takes the form of a routine scheduled inspection of a unit or department. The inspection should check standards, employee involvement and working practices, and that work is carried out in accordance with the procedures, etc.
4. Quality Tour: This is an unscheduled examination of a work area to ensure that, for example, the standards of operation are acceptable, obvious causes of errors are removed, and in general quality standards are maintained.
5. Quality Sampling: This measures by random sampling, similar to activity sampling, the potential error. Trained observers perform short tours of specific locations by prescribed routes and record the number of potential errors or defects seen. The results may be used to portray trends in the general quality situation.
6. Quality Scrutiny: This is the application of a formal, critical examination of the process and technological intentions for new or existing facilities, or to assess the potential for mal-operation or malfunction of equipment and the consequential effects of quality.
Objectives of Quality Audits
At the end of this article, the reader should be able to:
- Detect errors during investigations and follow up.
- Differentiate internal and external quality-system audits and reviews.
- State TQM standard for self-assessment.
Error or Defect Investigations and Follow-up Procedures
The investigation of errors and defects can provide valuable error prevention information. The method is based on:
- Collecting data and information relating to the error or defect.
- Checking the validity of the evidence.
- Selecting the evidence without making assumptions or jumping to conclusions.
The results of the analysis are then used to:
- Decide the most likely cause(s) of the errors or defects.
- Notify immediately the person(s) able to take corrective action.
- Record the findings and outcomes.
- Report them to everyone concerned, to prevent a recurrence.
The investigation should not become an inquisition to apportion blame, but focus on the positive prevention aspects.
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Internal and External Quality-System Audits and Reviews
A good quality system will not function without adequate audits and reviews. The system reviews, which need to be carried out periodically and systematically, are conducted to ensure that the system achieves the required effect, while audits are carried out to make sure that actual methods are adhering to the documented procedures.
The reviews should use the findings of the audits, for failure to operate according to the plan often signifies difficulties in doing so. A re-examination of the procedures actually being used may lead to system improvements unobtainable by other means.
A schedule for carrying out the audits should be drawn up, different activities perhaps requiring different frequencies. All procedures and systems should be audited at least once per year. There must be, however, a facility to adjust this on the basis of the audit results.
A quality-system review should be instituted, perhaps every 12 months, with the aims of:
- Ensuring that the system is achieving the desired results.
- Revealing defects or irregularities in the system.
- Indicating any necessary improvements and/or corrective actions to eliminate waste or loss.
- Checking on all levels of management.
- Uncovering potential danger areas.
- Verifying that improvements or corrective action procedures are effective.
Clearly, the procedures for carrying out the audits and reviews and the results from them should be documented, and be subject to review.
The assessment of a quality system against a particular standard or set of requirements by internal audit and review is known as a first-party assessment or approval scheme.
If an external customer makes the assessment of a supplier against his own or a national or international standard, a second-party scheme is in operation.
The external assessment by an independent organisation not connected with any contract between customer and supplier, but acceptable to them both, is known as an independent third-party assessment scheme. The latter usually results in some forms of certification or registration by the assessment body.
One advantage of the third-party schemes is that they obviate the need for customers to make their own detailed checks, saving both suppliers and customers time and money, and avoiding issues of commercial confidentiality.
Just one knowledgeable organisation has to be satisfied, rather than a multitude with varying levels of competence. This method often certifies suppliers for quality assurance based contracts without further checking.
Each certification body usually has its own recognised mark, which may be used by registered organisations of assessed capability in their literature, letter headings, and marketing activities.
There are also publications containing lists of organisations whose quality systems and/or products and services have been assessed. To be of value, the certification body must itself be recognised and, usually, assessed and registered with a national or international accreditation scheme, such as the National Accreditation Council for Certification Bodies (NACCB) in the UK.
Many organisations have found that the effort of designing and implementing a written quality system good enough to stand up to external independent third-party assessment has been extremely rewarding in:
- Encouraging staff and improving morale.
- Better process control.
- Reduced wastage.
- Reduced customer service costs.
This is also true of those organisations that have obtained third-party registrations and simply companies that still insist on their own second-party assessment. The reason for this is that most of the standards on quality systems, whether national, international, or company-specific, are now very similar indeed.
A system that meets the requirements of the ISO 9000 series will meet the requirements of all other standards, with only slight modifications and small emphasis here and there required for specific customers.
It is the author’s experience, and that of his immediate colleagues, that an assessment carried out by one of the independent certified assessment bodies is at least as rigorous and delving as any carried out by a second-party representative.
Internal system audits and reviews must be positive, and conducted as part of the preventive strategy and not be carried out only before external audits, nor should they be left to the external auditor whether second or third party.
An external auditor discovering discrepancies between actual and documented systems will be inclined to ask why the internal review methods did not discover and correct them.
As this type of behaviour in financial control and auditing is commonplace, why should things be different in the control quality?
Quality Management Commitment
Managements, anxious to display that they are serious about quality must become fully committed to operating an effective quality system for all personnel within the organisation, not just the staff in the quality department.
The system must be planned to be effective and achieve its objectives in an uncomplicated way. Having established and documented the procedures, an organisation must ensure that they are working and that everyone is operating in accordance with them.
The system once established is not static; it should be flexible, to enable the constant seeking of improvements or streamlining.
Standards for Quality Systems Auditing
There is a British and International Standard Guide to quality-systems auditing (BS 7229, ISO 10011: 1991). This points out that audits are required to verify whether the individual elements making up quality systems are effective in achieving the stated objectives.
The growing use of standards internationally emphasises the importance of auditing as a management tool for this purpose. The guidance provided in the standard can be applied equally to any one of the three specific and yet different auditing activities:
1. First-party or Internal Audits: Carried out by an organisation on its own systems, either by staff who are independent of the systems being audited, or by an outside agency.
2. Second-party Audits: Carried out by one organisation (a purchaser or its outside agent) on another with which it either has contracts to purchase goods or services or intends to do so.
3. Third-party Audits: Carried out by independent agencies, to provide assurance to existing and prospective customers for the product or service.
ISO 10011 (BS 7229) covers audit objectives and responsibilities, including the roles of auditors and their independence, and those of the ‘client’. It provides the following detailed guidance on audit:
1. Initiation: Including its scope and frequency.
2. Preparation: Including review of documentation, the programme, and working documents.
3. Execution: Including the opening meeting, examination and evaluation, collecting evidence, observations, and closing the meeting with the auditee.
4. Report: Including its preparation, content and distribution.
5. Completion: Including report submission and retention.
Attention is given at the end of the standard to corrective action and follow-up, where it is stressed that the improvement process should be continued by the client for a verification audit of the implementation of any corrective actions specified.
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