There is something calming and encouraging about checklists – especially if they are enticing, easy to follow through and constructive. This is even more true if you are struggling with conducting your audits as efficiently and effectively as possible.
From talking to our clients and partners, we have heard stories of internal audits taking too long to complete, information and data getting lost, corrective actions not being monitored or tracked post audit and reports need another day to complete rather than being instant. And we haven’t even mentioned complete lack of reports, trending and benchmarking. No wonder there is complete dissociation and pure value deficit in such outdated, flawed system based on the 80s office culture. How is it then possible for lack of transparency, accountability and strategic decision making to lead to reduction in non-compliance, or even more importantly on improvement in quality?
Whether you work for a giant food manufacturer or you are running your own small business, you will relate to difficult audits. This is why at iComplied, we have came up with a simple and effective checklist of necessary components and tasks that need to be provided by a holistic and centralised compliance tool in order to reduce the workload and costs of doing audits.
Step 1.Integrate all your compliance matters in one system
The lack of centralisation can affect the efficiency because searching, storing and retrieval of information is inefficient or non existent.
Having your risk, corrective actions, audits and documents in the same system can be a relief if real time retrieval and offline access is necessary component of a smooth and stresfree workflow.
Step 2 Integrate all your ISO checklists in one system
Adopting an integrated strategy when an organisation is certified to multiple standards can be challenging due to the complexity of the requirements and the checklists involved. In a system like iComplied, the template library including the following ISO checklists is included:
- ISO 14001 (environmental management systems).
- ISO 45001 (health and safety management systems)
- ISO 50001 (energy management systems).
- ISO 9001 (quality management systems)
- ISO 30001 (risk management systems)
- ISO 13485 (quality management systems for medical devices).
Because requirements, checklist template and the way you collect your corrective actions and data are the same, managing your ISO compliance from a single platform will eliminate retrieval time, duplicate effort and reduce costs.
Step 3 Collect more quality data
iComplied allows you to add as much information during your audits as possible, by using minimal effort and not wasting time taking notes. With richer dataset, more evidence attached, the management will be able to make more informed decisions.
Attaching documents and images to mobile audits performed on iPads and phones will enable auditors to add more detail to their findings without writing lengthy descriptions and this in turn will save the whole team considerable time and effort.
Step 4 Automate all corrective actions and follow ups
After all the audits have been completed, the last thing that an auditor needs is to manually add all the follow ups, findings and write up a detailed audit report. With iComplied, the integrated compliance tool, such as iComplied allows you to automatically assign corrective actions to other team members, print and email a detailed report with evidence hyperlinks and store all your audit data into graphs for trending.
Overall, a compliance tool allows you to focus on decision making, quality improvements and more efficient workflow, instead of wasting your time on manually entering data.
Step 5 Improve tools of compliance
With the transition to the new health and safety global standard, the overall improvement should also be reflected in the choice and implementation of an automated software that will align with and support organisation’s priorities and objectives. iComplied can centralise all your data in one system, and automate ISO audits that were previously done in Excel.
If you’d like to learn more about paperless compliance for your ISO 45001 needs, iComplied offers an easy-to-use mobile platform at a reasonable price so that the upfront time and money needed to switch over to this new and improved method for conducting internal audits is minimal.
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