SC QUALITY GUILDThe supplier audit
You are Wexford Power Systems' supplier auditor. One day on site: read the pack, choose three processes, interview the people who run them, and write findings that will survive the closing meeting. Everyone answers honestly. Nobody tells you anything you did not ask for.
- Supplier
- Meridian Drive Systems, Plant 2 (fictional). Gearcases and drive assemblies, about 180 people.
- You audit for
- Wexford Power Systems. Your parts are the MD-4400 family; everything else belongs to other customers.
- The day
- Read the pack. Choose three processes; the scope is fixed at the opening meeting. Interview each process owner. Write it up. Closing meeting at four.
- Questions
- No limit. Ask what you need, but a good auditor gets to the evidence in as few questions as possible.
- Graded on
- Whether your plan followed the data, what you uncovered inside your scope, and whether your findings hold up.
- Type or talk your questions the way you would ask them across a table. To talk, hold the Talk button or the space bar while you speak and let go to send. On a phone, a quick tap keeps it listening until you tap again.
- What people say is a claim. A record they hand over is evidence, and goes into your audit folder.
- Ask for a record that does not exist and you will be told so. That is worth knowing.
- Start with the three processes you planned. When an answer points somewhere else, follow the audit trail: everything in the company is open to you, and whoever you are talking to will help you get a document or bring the right person over.
- Each person has their own manner. Some talk too much, some too little, one is new, one will push back.
The pack
Meridian's processes Choose three
Business processes are broad and shallow; manufacturing processes are narrow and deep. The scope boundary is the process map: whatever sits inside a process's inputs, activities, outputs, people and resources is in scope. Tap a process to see its process map.
Opening meeting
Across the table: the quality manager and the people who own the processes you chose.
Your plan is the three you confirm here. You can still follow the audit trail anywhere in the company.
Notebook your notes for this process
Write it up
Your notebook
Write each finding the way you would present it: the requirement, a statement of what is not met, and the objective evidence. Evidence is anything you obtained today: a record you were handed, a record someone named, or what someone told you (“we don’t have one” counts). Type it, or tap the microphone beside a box and say it. Then ask the coach for a review: notes on each part, up to three reviews per finding. At the closing meeting the room checks your evidence against the real records and what was said.
Linked to the coach fills this in from what you wrote; check it
Your report
Closing meeting
Across the table: the general manager, the quality manager and the process owners. You present your findings one at a time. Each finding may be rewritten once, and the room will push back on the ones that stand.
A training simulation. Meridian, Ashgrove, Wexford and every person and record here are fictional. Each auditee is an AI working from a fixed set of records; it cannot invent evidence. SC Quality Guild is independent and not affiliated with ASQ.