OT - What are you doing right now?

fishlessman

ColbyLang said:

we pay for a third party audit annually as well, at the request of our customers. Costs us about $10,000 with expenses. 

we are around 10k for the yearly audit as well. i bring my third party inspector and the third party auditor in for the inspection at the national level. they look bad if i go down on some stupid technicality so they do a preview audit about a month before the big audit.  they change the rules every other year which is another 8 grand in books.  this is the last year im doing this, its no longer worth it time and money wise

nolaegghead

You guys are lucky.  We spend millions on audits each year.  The federal stuff is the easiest.  The customers' auditors make up new rules on the fly that contradict themselves, other auditors and the feds.  At least I'm not that involved with the pharma group, they are scrutinized at a whole new level.

Here's an example of a typical audit result that happened maybe 10 years ago:

IR thermometers do not display one-hundredths of a degree celcius.  Buy new IR thermometers that comply.  (These are used to screen if customer samples were preserved through refrigeration or not).

Eoin

We have railway procedure audits, which aren't much fun. We have a consultant on retainer who organises all of the paperwork and does a pre-audit. So far, we've not failed one.

fishlessman

but where is the calibration cert for it, how did you initially calibrate it, how do you maintain calibration with it, wheres the cert for whatever you calibrated it with, how often do you send that out to be calibrated, wheres the log book on that and wheres the log book on the ir therm, let me see your yearly eye sight log, did you take an eye color test, wheres the log on that. let me see your ir therm training procedure, let me see where your third party inspector signed off on that, who has been trained and signed off on that, was the room luminous enough to read the ir therm, how many lumens where there when you inspected, certified, and used the ir, did you test the lumen detector in a black room first......wheres your procedure for ..... i see you used the ir on april 4, 2017, now lets start over and see if everything was dated and logged on that date beginning to end

ASME stands for always sometimes maybe except.....may always means shall when written,  hard to win

fishlessman

IR thermometers do not display one-hundredths of a degree celcius.  Buy new IR thermometers that comply.  (These are used to screen if customer samples were preserved through refrigeration or not).

______________________________________________

this just means stop all work, we will be back in 8 weeks to make sure you comply

nolaegghead

fishlessman said:

but where is the calibration cert for it, how did you initially calibrate it, how do you maintain calibration with it, wheres the cert for whatever you calibrated it with, how often do you send that out to be calibrated, wheres the log book on that and wheres the log book on the ir therm, let me see your yearly eye sight log, did you take an eye color test, wheres the log on that. let me see your ir therm training procedure, let me see where your third party inspector signed off on that, who has been trained and signed off on that, was the room luminous enough to read the ir therm, how many lumens where there when you inspected, certified, and used the ir, did you test the lumen detector in a black room first......wheres your procedure for ..... i see you used the ir on april 4, 2017, now lets start over and see if everything was dated and logged on that date beginning to end

ASME stands for always sometimes maybe except.....may always means shall when written,  hard to win

Most of that stuff is completely under control.  We can generate a level of report that has, for example, all the certificates of authenticity and full traceability of all the chemicals, standards and reagents that were used to derive the final reported results.  All of this in a massive PDF file with a table of contents and hyperlinks to everything.

The amount of effort to do this just in infrastructure is massive, however, our products cost less than they ever have.  The only way we can do that is through continual improvement and automation, which is where I come in.

fishlessman

nolaegghead said:

fishlessman said:

but where is the calibration cert for it, how did you initially calibrate it, how do you maintain calibration with it, wheres the cert for whatever you calibrated it with, how often do you send that out to be calibrated, wheres the log book on that and wheres the log book on the ir therm, let me see your yearly eye sight log, did you take an eye color test, wheres the log on that. let me see your ir therm training procedure, let me see where your third party inspector signed off on that, who has been trained and signed off on that, was the room luminous enough to read the ir therm, how many lumens where there when you inspected, certified, and used the ir, did you test the lumen detector in a black room first......wheres your procedure for ..... i see you used the ir on april 4, 2017, now lets start over and see if everything was dated and logged on that date beginning to end

ASME stands for always sometimes maybe except.....may always means shall when written,  hard to win

Most of that stuff is completely under control.  We can generate a level of report that has, for example, all the certificates of authenticity and full traceability of all the chemicals, standards and reagents that were used to derive the final reported results.  All of this in a massive PDF file with a table of contents and hyperlinks to everything.

The amount of effort to do this just in infrastructure is massive, however, our products cost less than they ever have.  The only way we can do that is through continual improvement and automation, which is where I come in.

in this industry, all the physical equipment, weld xrays, xray review areas etc has to be available to the inspector in one location. if they cant physically touch it in the last hour, you fail til the next review. ive seen a fail with another company with an xray stored in another building.  i put a calibration pyramid in the office during these reviews, they want to see the calibration sticker on it to match with the logs, then they want to see all the verniers and physically match those stickers. asme is old school, just to apply for an inspection you need aol or youre not getting into the system. theres 4 feet of asme books on the shelf, the actual books need to be there and those need to be signed off as well and get this, they want each page initialed, i ended up making a procedure to say the signature means i inspected every page and thats a good hour discussion every time. the first time i wrote it i made it a signing in my manual but that didnt fly either, instead i now needed to sign off the section in the manual and in the individual books. there must be 30 books total, you have to have the right revision and that revision has to be an accepted revision. some books have several newer revisions that are unacceptable.  asme had alot of pull at one time, used to send things all over the world, now canada is out, most of asia, europe, south america. some work arounds but canada wants me to do their audits, europe and asia the same. not possible in a small company taking on all the costs flying these guys in and qualifying in three more systems

nolaegghead

fishlessman said:

nolaegghead said:

fishlessman said:

but where is the calibration cert for it, how did you initially calibrate it, how do you maintain calibration with it, wheres the cert for whatever you calibrated it with, how often do you send that out to be calibrated, wheres the log book on that and wheres the log book on the ir therm, let me see your yearly eye sight log, did you take an eye color test, wheres the log on that. let me see your ir therm training procedure, let me see where your third party inspector signed off on that, who has been trained and signed off on that, was the room luminous enough to read the ir therm, how many lumens where there when you inspected, certified, and used the ir, did you test the lumen detector in a black room first......wheres your procedure for ..... i see you used the ir on april 4, 2017, now lets start over and see if everything was dated and logged on that date beginning to end

ASME stands for always sometimes maybe except.....may always means shall when written,  hard to win

Most of that stuff is completely under control.  We can generate a level of report that has, for example, all the certificates of authenticity and full traceability of all the chemicals, standards and reagents that were used to derive the final reported results.  All of this in a massive PDF file with a table of contents and hyperlinks to everything.

The amount of effort to do this just in infrastructure is massive, however, our products cost less than they ever have.  The only way we can do that is through continual improvement and automation, which is where I come in.

in this industry, all the physical equipment, weld xrays, xray review areas etc has to be available to the inspector in one location. if they cant physically touch it in the last hour, you fail til the next review. ive seen a fail with another company with an xray stored in another building.  i put a calibration pyramid in the office during these reviews, they want to see the calibration sticker on it to match with the logs, then they want to see all the verniers and physically match those stickers. asme is old school, just to apply for an inspection you need aol or youre not getting into the system. theres 4 feet of asme books on the shelf, the actual books need to be there and those need to be signed off as well and get this, they want each page initialed, i ended up making a procedure to say the signature means i inspected every page and thats a good hour discussion every time. the first time i wrote it i made it a signing in my manual but that didnt fly either, instead i now needed to sign off the section in the manual and in the individual books. there must be 30 books total, you have to have the right revision and that revision has to be an accepted revision. some books have several newer revisions that are unacceptable.  asme had alot of pull at one time, used to send things all over the world, now canada is out, most of asia, europe, south america. some work arounds but canada wants me to do their audits, europe and asia the same. not possible in a small company taking on all the costs flying these guys in and qualifying in three more systems

You couldn't pay me enough to be in QA, I feel bad for those that have to deal with the auditors.  I could tell you some stories that you wouldn't believe but are true.  They have to find something wrong and it doesn't matter how well you have your sh!t together, they'll make up new rules to hit you on something. 

Most every state has their version of how things need to be done. There are so many variations on federal tests that we will have 2 dozen different methods to do the same thing to comply with various state methods.  It would be much simpler if everyone agreed to do the same thing, but politics has screwed the system so bad it's really driven out most of the smaller players in the game.  We absorb them like the Borg so I guess the increase in complexity has been favoring the big players, but it's insane to say the very least.

fishlessman

nolaegghead said:

fishlessman said:

nolaegghead said:

fishlessman said:

but where is the calibration cert for it, how did you initially calibrate it, how do you maintain calibration with it, wheres the cert for whatever you calibrated it with, how often do you send that out to be calibrated, wheres the log book on that and wheres the log book on the ir therm, let me see your yearly eye sight log, did you take an eye color test, wheres the log on that. let me see your ir therm training procedure, let me see where your third party inspector signed off on that, who has been trained and signed off on that, was the room luminous enough to read the ir therm, how many lumens where there when you inspected, certified, and used the ir, did you test the lumen detector in a black room first......wheres your procedure for ..... i see you used the ir on april 4, 2017, now lets start over and see if everything was dated and logged on that date beginning to end

ASME stands for always sometimes maybe except.....may always means shall when written,  hard to win

Most of that stuff is completely under control.  We can generate a level of report that has, for example, all the certificates of authenticity and full traceability of all the chemicals, standards and reagents that were used to derive the final reported results.  All of this in a massive PDF file with a table of contents and hyperlinks to everything.

The amount of effort to do this just in infrastructure is massive, however, our products cost less than they ever have.  The only way we can do that is through continual improvement and automation, which is where I come in.

in this industry, all the physical equipment, weld xrays, xray review areas etc has to be available to the inspector in one location. if they cant physically touch it in the last hour, you fail til the next review. ive seen a fail with another company with an xray stored in another building.  i put a calibration pyramid in the office during these reviews, they want to see the calibration sticker on it to match with the logs, then they want to see all the verniers and physically match those stickers. asme is old school, just to apply for an inspection you need aol or youre not getting into the system. theres 4 feet of asme books on the shelf, the actual books need to be there and those need to be signed off as well and get this, they want each page initialed, i ended up making a procedure to say the signature means i inspected every page and thats a good hour discussion every time. the first time i wrote it i made it a signing in my manual but that didnt fly either, instead i now needed to sign off the section in the manual and in the individual books. there must be 30 books total, you have to have the right revision and that revision has to be an accepted revision. some books have several newer revisions that are unacceptable.  asme had alot of pull at one time, used to send things all over the world, now canada is out, most of asia, europe, south america. some work arounds but canada wants me to do their audits, europe and asia the same. not possible in a small company taking on all the costs flying these guys in and qualifying in three more systems

You couldn't pay me enough to be in QA, I feel bad for those that have to deal with the auditors.  I could tell you some stories that you wouldn't believe but are true.  They have to find something wrong and it doesn't matter how well you have your sh!t together, they'll make up new rules to hit you on something. 

Most every state has their version of how things need to be done. There are so many variations on federal tests that we will have 2 dozen different methods to do the same thing to comply with various state methods.  It would be much simpler if everyone agreed to do the same thing, but politics has screwed the system so bad it's really driven out most of the smaller players in the game.  We absorb them like the Borg so I guess the increase in complexity has been favoring the big players, but it's insane to say the very least.

its becoming impossible for the little guy.  those audits usually crash at towards the end of the day, i try to set something easy to fix with a non conformance report, something really stupid. they like everything done in black pen, not blue. i do everything in ticonderoga #2. that alone will finish the day with discussion, then i take a copy of it and fill out a NCR and have my third party inspector sign it off. its that silly some days.  after a while you know all the inspectors and their pet peeves, ones that jump on materials are the worst as they can bring the process all the way back to say china and china fakes this stuff all the time or rewords something that you miss on a mill test report or something

ColbyLang

Annnnnd done. One infraction. Jesus

fishlessman

ColbyLang said:

Annnnnd done. One infraction. Jesus

something easy to fix? or the weights been lifted and its time for a drink

saluki2007

Getting to be that that time of the year. 

Legume

I find client audits to be more annoying then gov inspections.  More and more they outsource audits and the contract auditors justify their cost with findings.  Their findings are often rife with opinion on ‘the right way to do it’ vs accepted industry best practices or regs.  “When I was doing this job…”  Sure, you were amazing, that’s why you are a contract auditor now.  To be fair, some are very good, knowledgeable and reasonable, but that’s a minority in my experience.

Gulfcoastguy

nolaegghead said:

fishlessman said:

nolaegghead said:

fishlessman said:

but where is the calibration cert for it, how did you initially calibrate it, how do you maintain calibration with it, wheres the cert for whatever you calibrated it with, how often do you send that out to be calibrated, wheres the log book on that and wheres the log book on the ir therm, let me see your yearly eye sight log, did you take an eye color test, wheres the log on that. let me see your ir therm training procedure, let me see where your third party inspector signed off on that, who has been trained and signed off on that, was the room luminous enough to read the ir therm, how many lumens where there when you inspected, certified, and used the ir, did you test the lumen detector in a black room first......wheres your procedure for ..... i see you used the ir on april 4, 2017, now lets start over and see if everything was dated and logged on that date beginning to end

ASME stands for always sometimes maybe except.....may always means shall when written,  hard to win

Most of that stuff is completely under control.  We can generate a level of report that has, for example, all the certificates of authenticity and full traceability of all the chemicals, standards and reagents that were used to derive the final reported results.  All of this in a massive PDF file with a table of contents and hyperlinks to everything.

The amount of effort to do this just in infrastructure is massive, however, our products cost less than they ever have.  The only way we can do that is through continual improvement and automation, which is where I come in.

in this industry, all the physical equipment, weld xrays, xray review areas etc has to be available to the inspector in one location. if they cant physically touch it in the last hour, you fail til the next review. ive seen a fail with another company with an xray stored in another building.  i put a calibration pyramid in the office during these reviews, they want to see the calibration sticker on it to match with the logs, then they want to see all the verniers and physically match those stickers. asme is old school, just to apply for an inspection you need aol or youre not getting into the system. theres 4 feet of asme books on the shelf, the actual books need to be there and those need to be signed off as well and get this, they want each page initialed, i ended up making a procedure to say the signature means i inspected every page and thats a good hour discussion every time. the first time i wrote it i made it a signing in my manual but that didnt fly either, instead i now needed to sign off the section in the manual and in the individual books. there must be 30 books total, you have to have the right revision and that revision has to be an accepted revision. some books have several newer revisions that are unacceptable.  asme had alot of pull at one time, used to send things all over the world, now canada is out, most of asia, europe, south america. some work arounds but canada wants me to do their audits, europe and asia the same. not possible in a small company taking on all the costs flying these guys in and qualifying in three more systems

You couldn't pay me enough to be in QA, I feel bad for those that have to deal with the auditors.  I could tell you some stories that you wouldn't believe but are true.  They have to find something wrong and it doesn't matter how well you have your sh!t together, they'll make up new rules to hit you on something. 

Most every state has their version of how things need to be done. There are so many variations on federal tests that we will have 2 dozen different methods to do the same thing to comply with various state methods.  It would be much simpler if everyone agreed to do the same thing, but politics has screwed the system so bad it's really driven out most of the smaller players in the game.  We absorb them like the Borg so I guess the increase in complexity has been favoring the big players, but it's insane to say the very least.

I agree. Sometimes I would leave an obvious but minor and correctable error. When found they would have something to write on the books and relax. I called it “selling wolf tickets “ ie one upping Peter and the Wolf.
You would not believe the number of audits by multiple agencies after Katrina . For five years we just left those records in cardboard boxes on top of the filling cabinets.

fishlessman

Legume said:

I find client audits to be more annoying then gov inspections.  More and more they outsource audits and the contract auditors justify their cost with findings.  Their findings are often rife with opinion on ‘the right way to do it’ vs accepted industry best practices or regs.  “When I was doing this job…”  Sure, you were amazing, that’s why you are a contract auditor now.  To be fair, some are very good, knowledgeable and reasonable, but that’s a minority in my experience.

there are some really dumb ones out there, had one inspect a weld that was still glowing red, smoking hot, touch it. walked away biting his lip trying not to scream and not letting on that it ever happened. spilled a coffee all over himself and walked out the door had a know it all nuclear inspector that made every mistake including how to tie his shoes. i like these the best but it seems nowadays they know more but then again they are just mostly filling in blanks on a screen

Botch

Gulfcoastguy said:  
Sometimes I would leave an obvious but minor and correctable error. When found they would have something to write on the books and relax. 

I worked for a Colonel like that at Kirtland AFB.  No matter how succinct, or good, I wrote something, he would have to change something to justify himself.  
I soon learned to write something the way I wanted, and then swap the position of two adjacent words.  He would correct that, and leave the rest alone.  
Have I mentioned how much I love retirement?  

Eoin

Trying to sort flights for a business trip to Italy. I've not flown for a while, just looking reminds me what a time suck in person international meetings are.

ColtsFan

https://www.freethink.com/technology/farming-robot

@alaskanassasin needs one of these

nolaegghead

ColtsFan said:

https://www.freethink.com/technology/farming-robot

@alaskanassasin needs one of these

I like it.  We need to work smarter, not harder, if we're going to survive with a census of billions.

Foghorn

CPFC1905 said:

Remember, remember the 5th November?  Maybe you don’t but Bonfire Night is the only news in town around here. Martyrs, Founding Fathers and burning barrels of tar. Go here: https://www.lewesbonfirecelebrations.com for a startling mix of politics, religion, challenging ethnic perspectives and peculiar rivalries. None of that in the PL of course, so here we go;

Friday; 

Southampton v Aston Villa : the visitors are in injury and suspension turmoil, the hosts seem to be pulling it together now.  2-1.

Saturday;

Man Utd v Man City : still all bonkers at Old Trafford and despite Citeh misfiring they are too good for Ole’s men.  Grim affair with the points going Blue. 1-2

Brentford v Norwich : solace for the Bees as the reality of the PL begins to bite.  The Canaries offer nothing and seem to be planning for next year in the Championship already. 2-0

Chelsea v Burnley : there’s one version whereby the Clarets are resolute and thwart the Blues but that’s a slender likelihood. Business as usual 2-0

Palace v Wolves : Astonishing scenes after the Eagles outplayed Citeh last week and this is potential banana skin.  Wolves have slipped the shifter from N to D and are in solid form.  All three results possible here. 1-1

Brighton v Newcastle : moral conflict alert. Toon as a team are falling apart whilst arguably the richest club in the world but paralysed until January. The growing narrative is which players will be attracted to a truly awful team fighting relegation?  If only both could lose, but for the good of the game then it has to be a home win 2-0.

Luton v Stoke : Eric Morecambe (Google/Ewe Chube him) would be thrilled that his team are 8th and host 6th place Potters with chance to sneak int o the play-off places.  Tough game and hard to call, narrow home win 2-1 but that’s not cut and dried. 

Sunday;

Arsenal v Watford : training ground neighbours meet while the Gunners are in the ascendancy and talk has shifted from cataclysmic collapse to the greatest team since the Invincibles (not the cartoon) inside three weeks.  Routine home win 1-0. 

Everton v Spurs : a couple of wobble clubs fight out another round of the Everton Cup. The Toffees  are on a hot losing streak and Spurs on a milder losing streak, but have a new manager.  The visitors were in Europe and that may tip it towards a home win, but 1-1 feels about right. 

Leeds v Leicester : a free hit win over Norwich shouldn’t cloud the fact that Leeds have severe second season syndrome.  Nothing better than seeing the Foxes’ Screaming Scrotom miss a penalty, which he did last night. That alone guarantees his hat trick on Sunday, 1-3. 

West Ham v Liverpool : as credible as the Hammers are, the Reds are on another level and should have this covered.  I don’t think it’ll be easy but real quality should pervade 0-1.

First frost of the year this morning, so I am out to scrape the ice off with a credit card.  I do work from home but it’s good to keep your skills up, isn’t it?

Thank you @CPFC1905.  I concur.

kl8ton

Who's auditing the auditors!?!?

bubbajack

Anybody want to ZOOM tonight?

pgprescott

kl8ton said:

Who's auditing the auditors!?!?

Well, I live 15 minutes from Dixon IL. Ask them about that. Nobody! 😳

kl8ton

@pgprescott

My wife has family there.  Seems like that lady would find a new place to hang out.  .   

pgprescott

kl8ton said:

@pgprescott

My wife has family there.  Seems like that lady would find a new place to hang out.  .   

Unreal story. I would not venture out in dark alleys after dark if I were her. Those taxpayer can’t be happy they let her out already. 

lkapigian

A Metric load of Award Winning Smoked Mac and Cheese 

GrateEggspectations

lkapigian said:

A Metric load of Award Winning Smoked Mac and Cheese 

Tell us more about your recipe. What makes this the lkapigian?

JohnInCarolina

lkapigian said:

A Metric load of Award Winning Smoked Mac and Cheese 

Dude

ColbyLang

fishlessman said:

ColbyLang said:

Annnnnd done. One infraction. Jesus

something easy to fix? or the weights been lifted and its time for a drink

Beyond easy. One document wasn’t specific enough in regards to sanitation of production line as it relates to us running product with butter in it on that line. It’s an allergen. Our SSOP wasn’t specific enough even though the work was done and the biological swab came back clean

lkapigian

GrateEggspectations said:

lkapigian said:

A Metric load of Award Winning Smoked Mac and Cheese 

Tell us more about your recipe. What makes this the lkapigian?

Thanks @jo@JohnInCarolina @GrateEggspectations

It’s a riff off Malcom Reeds Mac and Cheese with a few twists, I add bacon to the Mornay as well as topping, the bacon is homemade …fermented hot sauce ..smoked over oak for 2 hours , couple other “ secret “ umami ingredients -voted best side dish several times 

rib cook off tomorrow, so this is going there, no side dish entry though