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Audit / inspections with tablet app?

Discussion in 'ISO 9001:2015 - Quality Management Systems' started by Bart Verdoodt, Jun 4, 2020.

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  1. Bart Verdoodt

    Bart Verdoodt Member

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    Hello quality people!

    Does anybody have any experience with performing (internal) audits and / or (housekeeping) inspections with an app on tablet or smartphone?
    I 'd love to hear your experiences and opinions about that.
    What tool / app do you use? What are its advantages and downsides?

    Many thanks.

    Best Regards,

    Bart
     
  2. Andy Nichols

    Andy Nichols Moderator Staff Member

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    Welcome, Bart! My experience is with a product called "Tulip" and I have programmed the app for use when performing Layered Process Audits and have seen it used for 5 S audits too. Because these are different in format to QMS audits which tend to be less "formulaic" (or at least should be) I couldn't recommend an app for internal audits.
     
  3. Bart Verdoodt

    Bart Verdoodt Member

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    Many thanks, Andy.
    I 'll check it out.
    I don't have much (not to say any) programming experience, though...
     
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  4. Andy Nichols

    Andy Nichols Moderator Staff Member

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    Alstublieft! The programming isn't exactly difficult. It's the logic which is required to consider the "if this, then that" situations expected when doing an audit.
     
  5. Mehrdad Soltanifar

    Mehrdad Soltanifar Member

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    Hi Bart,
    I've used "Mango", "MyEasyIso" and "iAuditor". Based on my experience "MyEasyIso" was the best among them.
    If you give more info on the type of business your on and the purpose of the audits, I might be able to assist more.
     
  6. Bart Verdoodt

    Bart Verdoodt Member

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    Hi Mehrdad,

    Thanks for the info.
    (And sorry it took that long for me to reply...)
    Our company produces plastic masterbatches.
    Audit purpose is ISO 9001:2015 auditing, but also housekeeping and safety audits.
    Basically I am looking for a tool to set up a practical and easy auditing system.

    Best Regards,

    Bart
     
  7. Andy Nichols

    Andy Nichols Moderator Staff Member

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    I've seen such audit apps. Typically, they take a standard (ISO 9001, ISO 14001 etc) and "parrot-phrase" each requirement as a question. The use of such compliance oriented, criteria checklists is a slippery slope. They are not true internal audits. Sure, they have their place (twice, in implementing a QMS/EMS, perhaps) but after that, about as useful as a bicycle to a fish.
     
  8. Bart Verdoodt

    Bart Verdoodt Member

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    We use a Dutch app now, called CheckBuster.
    It's advantage is that, once the audit / inspection checklists are made up, it is easy to do the inspection.
    And the report is made up automatically. Including a score.
    We mostly use them for housekeeping inspections and safety walks. (Based on OK / NOK, remarks and pictures.)
    For QMS-audits, as you say, still a lot of text entry needs to be done.
     
  9. Krishna Sasank

    Krishna Sasank New Member

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    I built an app to help teams conduct audits digitally and generate reports automatically with a score. Along with the reports, we also provide instant analytics to give our users a good understanding of the root cause of issues that are occurring at the workplace. We also set up all the checklists (including QMS) for our users so that you can save time.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jan 7, 2022
  10. Andy Nichols

    Andy Nichols Moderator Staff Member

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    Does the internal auditor have input to creating the checklist or are they created and provided to the auditor?
     
  11. Krishna Sasank

    Krishna Sasank New Member

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    The auditor can create a checklist using our drag and drop builder and they can use pre-existing checklists to conduct inspections.
     
  12. Andy Nichols

    Andy Nichols Moderator Staff Member

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    So the auditor must still use what's preloaded into the software? How is that different from a predefined checklist?
     
  13. Krishna Sasank

    Krishna Sasank New Member

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    No, I meant that the auditors can either create custom checklists from scratch and use them for inspections or they can also use the checklist templates that we provide and customize them to suit their needs.

    In the software, everything from checklists to workflows can be completely customized. If a specific issue is detected during an inspection, you can choose who should be notified and those people will be instantly notified. This eliminates under-reporting issues.
     
  14. Andy Nichols

    Andy Nichols Moderator Staff Member

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    Excellent! The most effective audits come from auditors who have immersed themselves in studying the audit criteria, not just copied and pasted a set of questions someone else created...
     
  15. Jennifer Kirley

    Jennifer Kirley Moderator Staff Member

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    I have used an app called iAuditor which uses customizable checklists. I really liked its ability to include photos taken with the iPhone or Android, also its voice recognition worked pretty well. It made professional looking reports.

    I'm with Andy: I hate canned checklists with a passion. Listing the ISO clauses is less than worthless to me because having to scroll through section 8 while trying to do a process audit is horrible. I would instead favor a plan-do-check-act arrangement of inputs.

    I am not affiliated with Safety Culture.
     
  16. Krishna Sasank

    Krishna Sasank New Member

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    Thanks for the suggestion Jennifer. Does iauditor provide customizable reports? Can we choose how our report can look?
     
  17. QueenOfQuality

    QueenOfQuality Member

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    SafetyMint is another easy one with customisable modules and checklists. They offer a free trial so you can have a play with it.