5 replies to this topic

[Charlie M]

Hellow everyone - we had our first BRC certification audit last week. We did well on the audit and I am now working on root cause and corrective actions. Two of the findings were for requirements we missed in our procedures. I don't know what to use for a root cause for something we should have included and just missed in our procedures. Does anyone have an example of how you satisfied the auditor for root cause for this type of situation.

[Simon]

Hi Charlie, well done on doing well in your first BRC audit; they're not easy, even to seasoned campaigners. I would tell it like it is "an oversight" - nothing more nothing less, not all corrective actions can have a root cause. You could expand and say due to lack of deeper understanding blah, blah,blah, but I wouldn't worry too much about it. Don't get me wrong I think it's a good idea to get the company to think about the root cause...where warranted.


Welcome to the forums.





Regards,
Simon

[Charles.C]

Dear Charlie,

It could also depend on the specifics.

If not confidential, you might consider posting the actual NC-omission and maybe get some more direct suggestions as to a possible response.

Rgds / Charles.C

[Foodworker]

The BRC has become a bit obsessive about root cause analysis and it is danger of becoming ritualistic.

There are some circumstances where finding and correcting a root cause is a valuable exercise for both the company and compliance with the Standard and others where it has no significant benefit. So many root causes ultimately come down to money and people.

A 'missed procedure' could be down to interpretation of the Standard and unless it is one of the clauses that says "There shall be a procedure that ....." there is a certain amount of subjectivity.

However, we, or more precisely, you are stuck with it.

In a similar situation (although not exactly the same as we didn't agree with the auditor but acceped it for the sake of convenience) the root cause we provided was that the Technical Manager was not 100% conversant with the Standard's requirements and the action was to hold a BRC review day with the Technical and a couple of others to cross check what we had in place against the Standard.

The Root Cause Analysis was OK with the CB and it did provide us with a very useful document to use in preparation for the next audit. At the next audit the auditor will have to go through our corrective action for the root cause, but I don't believe that will be a problem

[Charlie M]

The BRC has become a bit obsessive about root cause analysis and it is danger of becoming ritualistic.

There are some circumstances where finding and correcting a root cause is a valuable exercise for both the company and compliance with the Standard and others where it has no significant benefit. So many root causes ultimately come down to money and people.

A 'missed procedure' could be down to interpretation of the Standard and unless it is one of the clauses that says "There shall be a procedure that ....." there is a certain amount of subjectivity.

However, we, or more precisely, you are stuck with it.

In a similar situation (although not exactly the same as we didn't agree with the auditor but acceped it for the sake of convenience) the root cause we provided was that the Technical Manager was not 100% conversant with the Standard's requirements and the action was to hold a BRC review day with the Technical and a couple of others to cross check what we had in place against the Standard.

The Root Cause Analysis was OK with the CB and it did provide us with a very useful document to use in preparation for the next audit. At the next audit the auditor will have to go through our corrective action for the root cause, but I don't believe that will be a problem
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[Charlie M]

Thanks for the input. I agree BRC is a bit crazy when it comes to root cause analyis. I'll give your corrective action a try and see what happens.