audits

[ldla]

We recently had an audit based on the NELAC 2003 standard. we have contracted the same auditor for the last two audits.

During our first audit with this auditor our ethics training policy was sufficient. During our second, and most recent audit, with this same auditor we were heavily cited for deficiencies in our ethics training policy. Shortly afterwards, I kid you not, we were sent an email from this same auditor stating that he offered an ethics training course that we could take for a fee. Granted, there are improvements to be made in our quality manual but the circumstances are so ridiculous that I am at a loss.

This is just one highlight of an audit that, for the first time, has left me feeling a little defeated and exhausted, so I am looking for some camaraderie and a place to vent.

Does anyone else have an audit story they want to share? Cause, well, you know...misery loves company.



By the way, i know this is a chromatography forum, but anyone else's lab also test for BacT in drinking water? When a BacT sample from a chlorinated system is submitted without a chlorine value, we must measure residual chlorine in house. Many of our distribution systems here are non-chlorinated systems. Since they are a non-chlorinated system they are not required to measure chlorine at time of sample. Does anyone else test residual chlorine on bacT samples from non-chlorinated systems?

[Johnny Rod]

It's a tough time to be a consultant! Got to make those jobs appear from thin air!

[Peter Apps]

Auditors also get audited - I wonder what the finding will be about this one's ethics ?

Peter

[lmh]

Inventing a problem so that you can ask people to pay you to fix it is a classic.

Incidentally, this sort of thing spawns more, and spreads. The scenario could be worse than you think: Your auditor is probably so fired up on ethics because someone sent him on a training course about ethics, and everyone he trains will come out believing that they are now on a mission to spread ethics, and they will train still more. As a UK citizen, I'm convinced that the UK will finally grind to a halt when half of the workforce is being employed to train the other half in spurious skills.

It'd be OK if it improved ethics, but it won't.

[LC_labrat]

Problem is the bean counters won't find the audit useful unless the contract auditors identify areas of improvement, thus next time they won't re-hire them. Most certainly they can think of something and then suggest a return visit to make sure suitable corrections were made.

[Peter Apps]

I'm convinced that the UK will finally grind to a halt when half of the workforce is being employed to train the other half in spurious skills.

Brilliant ! That's going into my collection of quotes.

Peter

[Johnny Rod]

Haha, it's like the secret of full employment, pay one guy to take it from here to there, and another one to bring it back again.

As the labrat says, hired consultants have to put something down to justify their abilities. Often this has the hollow rasp of a barrel bottom being scraped.

[Consumer Products Guy]

hired consultants have to put something down to justify their abilities. Often this has the hollow rasp of a barrel bottom being scraped.

I like this !!!

[KM-USA]

"Our" internal auditors dinged us for having a poster on the wall that had the old company logo on it: not allowed.

On another audit the finding was that hood slashes were open slightly more than the 4-inch minimum.

On another audit the finding was volumetric flasks on the bench did not have safety stickers on them. Of course, they were empty, put there the end of previous day, nothing had been added to them yet.

Feel safer now?

[JGK]

Our QA in a previous company came up with the following:

Where are the calibration logs for those volumetric flasks and pipettes? (given the ratio of volumetrics to staff it would be a neverending exercise)

Where are the operating SOP, Usage log and calibration records for this instrument? (A single speed vortex mixer)

[lmh]

ah, now on safety inspections, I have to say our team have become much more reasonable and helpful in the last couple of years, but back in the old days we had huge fun.

One bone of contention was the acetic acid. If it was in the acids cupboard, they always complained it was inflammable and should be in with the flammable solvents. If it was in the flammables cupboard, they complained it was an acid...

KM-USA, ours were the other way round: if they found an empty bottle with safety stickers on it, they complained that the contents couldn't possibly be harmful/inflammable/oxidising because there weren't any contents. The nicest feature though, was that these complaints would be written up formally, and travel to us via the proper management chain, with the result that we'd get complaints about a mislabelled bottle near the sink some 2 months later (bottle obviously long-since gone).

At one stage, one of my colleagues had a trolley that was very useful, but for various reasons wasn't actually up to appropriate safety standards. He simply labelled it "This is not a trolley". This tactic worked for many years before someone had the gumption to ask what it was, if not a trolley.

But the best were my less-helpful colleagues, one of whom used to love setting me up. One year he left a soft-drinks can in the radioactive work area. Another year it was a set of coffee cups in the lab sink. Oh the hilarity.

[Peter Apps]

At one stage, one of my colleagues had a trolley that was very useful, but for various reasons wasn't actually up to appropriate safety standards. He simply labelled it "This is not a trolley". This tactic worked for many years before someone had the gumption to ask what it was, if not a trolley.

I had a notebook in which I scribbled down notes to self and odd things about what needed ordering, sketches of unlikely plans for hardware etc, phone numbers and so-on. Since none of this was signed or dated, and some of it was written in pencil I took the precaution of writing in large letters on the cover THIS IS NOT A CONTROLLED DOCUMENT - it worked like garlic on vampires.

Peter

[KM-USA]

Our safety director detailed that we should dispense 5 gallons of water from each eyewash and safety shower each testing (weekly for eyewash and monthly for showers). Issue is: there are no drains in the floors, so there's a huge logistics issue of disposing of maybe 40 gallons of water. Safety also details that one cannot lift more than 30 pounds.

Anyway, policy was quickly modified.

We still haven't figured out how we can know how heavy something is without lifting it....so we joke that everything is 29.5 pounds....

[lmh]

OK, I can see a series of strategies here:

(1) Stand on a set of bathroom scales while starting to lift object. Monitor your weight (or better, ask someone else to do so); if number increases by 29.5 pounds, stop lifting.
(2) Wheel up X-ray equipment not exceeding 30 pounds in weight. Analyse object to be lifted. Create a full 3-dimensional model and identify likely materials of which each part is made. Integrate the entire model multiplying by the density of the expected material in that voxel. Result is expected weight of object.
(3) Place medium-sized explosive charge next to object, followed by another object of known mass not exceeding 30lbs. Set off explosive. Look at where the two objects end up. From this it should be possible to calculate mass of unknown object.
(4) I think this works, but it's testing my physics. Flood area containing object in liquid mercury. Assuming it doesn't actually form an amalgam and dissolve, it will probably float. Attach floating object to some suitable balance, and lift it slightly so you're recording a mass (not exceeding 30lbs). Draw a line on the side of object to show current mercury-level (use a mercury-proof pen). Now progressively add sodium (under an inert atmosphere, and heating if necessary to keep the alloy liquid) until the object sinks slightly. Lift it using balance (still not exceeding 30lbs) until the line is back at the current mercury-level (i.e. it's displacing the same volume of liquid). Now find the density of the current alloy versus pure mercury, and using the increased weight of object, calculate how heavy it really is. I think this works. Need to go and do the arithmetic.

(5) My favourite: calibrate a revolving office chair so that it sinks if you put more than 30lbs on it. Standing on revolving chair, attempt to lift object.

[KM-USA]

In our old lab, our department had 12 fire extinguishers. In our new lab, twice the square footage in our department, exactly ZERO.

Reason is that only "currently trained" personnel are allowed to use an extinguisher on a fire. And that training needs to be hands-on, and every year.