The quantum audit
To keep all the stakeholders happy, it became necessary to radically rethink the approach to internal audits at a BMW engine plant in the UK. Ceri Davies, Dean Lucas and Tim O’Hanlon explain how this was done
Certification of the management systems at the BMW engine plant at Hams Hall in North Warwickshire, UK was a BMW Group requirement. With this came a need for a system and process audit as well as documentation reviews.
On top of this, the BMW Group continuous improvement philosophy required that processes were regularly assessed to identify potential improvements and to ensure that they addressed evolving customer requirements.
The approach adopted in Hams Hall was to combine these tasks to reduce the amount of time and effort required overall whilst improving the output in terms of opportunities for improvement and stakeholder satisfaction of the audit process.
Time for a change
Many organisations have a mature quality management system but also realise that the traditional approach to auditing, both internal and external, has begun to lose momentum in terms of the benefits gained by the business.
Within BMW Plant Hams Hall a cross-functional team identified that an audit process that added value to the business, was required. A number of approaches were explored before the processes were refined to what has become known as the ‘quantum audit’. This evolution is shown in figure 1.
It was decided that a change of perception about the purpose of the audit process was needed. To achieve this, a number of assumptions had to be made. The assumptions:
- the audit process was to be rebranded and turned into a positive experience for all involved
- all stakeholders in the audit process understood the difference between correction of isolated instances and corrective action to eliminate root causes
- opportunities to reduce and simplify documentation in the system were inevitable and desirable
- the process could not be introduced without extensive coaching of all the key stakeholders, including the auditors
Figure
1 The evolution of the 'quantum audit'
The new approach
First, the theory that the various audits, assessments and reviews could be combined, had to be proved. Over a period of six months the process and objectives were discussed and developed until the approach was agreed. There are five phases in the new approach:
- planning the audit process with all key stakeholders
- walking the process
- reporting and review
- corrective action
- follow up
We agreed early on to replace the language employed in audits with language successfully being experienced in the business from EFQM assessments and process management training.
The most significant change related to the planning phase. Instead of the auditor being remote from the process and preparing checklists based on the existing procedure, all the key stakeholders participated in a facilitated planning meeting. Typically this meeting includes the process owner, the audit team, the internal customer, the internal supplier and the process coach (initially this is the external specialist). The team work through a series of planning tools to identify:
- a common understanding of the process, its purpose and measures
- the effectiveness issues
- the efficiency issues
- the flexibility issues eg responsiveness to change
- process conformity
- standard compliance issues, including quality, environmental and safety
Now the approach was agreed on, it needed to be tested and this involved running a series of pilot audits.
Understanding the process
The first technique used was an SIPOC analysis (suppliers, inputs, process, outputs, customers). This technique helps the audit team to get a common understanding of the process steps, inputs, outputs and key stakeholders.
Once this analysis is complete, the planning team go into more detail and use the XY input-output analysis to understand what is happening at the micro level. Once stakeholders identify all the inputs and outputs, they will begin to identify improvement opportunities, for example eliminating non-value adding inputs. Part of understanding the process is having an appreciation of the responsibilities and communication channels.
The next stage is understanding the things that can go wrong, both actual and potential problems. These might compromise the effectiveness, efficiency and flexibility of the process.
The planning team can use prioritisation tools such as matrix analysis or paired comparisons to prioritise the key themes to be investigated by the audit team. Four questions are then asked of the customer:
- what are the strengths of this process?
- what are the most important opportunities for improvement for you, as the customer?
- how do you measure the success of the process?
- what are the other issues important to you?
The audit team now use this information to prepare a series of cause and effect diagrams and then refer to the process coach to help identify the applicable clauses in the standard.
Each member of the audit team now prepares a checklist in line with the focus assigned to them eg effectiveness, efficiency, improvement, standards (health, safety and environmental). In many cases auditors have found the cause and effect diagrams are already excellent checklists and no further documentation is required.
Walking the process
The audit team, accompanied by the process owner, an internal customer and supplier use the information and checklists developed during the planning phase to audit the process, and identify improvements and nonconformities.
This is a far less formal approach to the more traditional style of audits and although the approach takes a lot longer than old style auditing, the depth of the analysis is such that the frequency of audits can be reduced in almost all cases. Consequently the process becomes resource efficient.
Corrective action
Nonconformities are corrected by eliminating the root cause of the problem. Using a database allows the tracking of failures such as poor documentation and inadequate training.
Compulsory actions are not necessarily nonconformities but are clearly beneficial to stakeholders and are usually easy to address.
Opportunities for improvement are transferred to the internal continuous improvement process and the process team prioritise and implement the improvements and then receive the recognition as part of the normal rewards and recognition process.
This heightens the willingness of the process team members to adopt and implement these improvements. It also distributes workload and improves ownership of the improvements.
Benefits
In terms of the critical success factors identified during the development phase we can now state:
- there is clear evidence that the approach is adding value - the number of areas for improvement identified and implemented supports this
- the reduction in the overall number of audits, has enabled a better utilisation of resources. This also carries forward to external certification where, within the BMW Group, there are now three certificates covering the same number of factories that had previously required 27 certificates
- the stakeholders involved in the process have provided favourable feedback, seeing the process as both enjoyable and a learning opportunity
About the authors
Ceri Davies is the manager of business strategy at BMW plant Hams
Hall and has overall ownership of the business management system including
the audit process.
E: ceri.davies@bmwgroup.com
Dean Lucas is a problem resolution engineer at BMW Plant Hams Hall
and acted as the interface with the BMW Group during the development
of the management process model and the implementation of matrix certification.
E: dean.lucas@bmwgroup.com
Tim O’Hanlon is a director with Eurospan Developments Limited
and author of the ASQ book 'Quality audits for ISO 9001: 2000 –
making compliance value added'.
E: tim@e-d-l.com
Dean Lucas, Ceri Davies and Tim O’Hanlon with a BMW engine
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