Passed Initial BRC Packaging Audit....Barely
We received 1 major and 19 minors. When transitioning from AIB standards to BRC standards my word of advice, throw out your old way of thinking, if it worked for AIB chances are it will not be good enough for BRC!
Our 1 major occurred because I did not document our initial management review of the BRC for Packaging Standard, all topics documented although I did not document who was in attendance, the time frame for the meeting (minutes) and the date. Well that will teach me, because without that one major we would have achieved a B rating.
You live you learn, now I have 28 days to fix all non-conformances and my head is already spinning! :)
Time to start searching the forum for advice!
Congratulations!
Now that you've had a taste of the audit you'll know what to expect in the future.
Dear craiglbc,
It is worth remembering that BRC devised their earlier (food) standard to offer a significant due diligence response within the UK food law system. This gives it a certain extra "bite". I suspect "Packaging" has maintained a similar philosophy. :smile:
Rgds / Charles.C
PS- Regardless of the difficulties encountered, it is already a major achievement to get (BRC) certified - Congratulations !
Congratu-olences! Those first audits sting! It does get better!
We received 1 major and 19 minors. When transitioning from AIB standards to BRC standards my word of advice, throw out your old way of thinking, if it worked for AIB chances are it will not be good enough for BRC!
Our 1 major occurred because I did not document our initial management review of the BRC for Packaging Standard, all topics documented although I did not document who was in attendance, the time frame for the meeting (minutes) and the date. Well that will teach me, because without that one major we would have achieved a B rating.
You live you learn, now I have 28 days to fix all non-conformances and my head is already spinning! :)
Time to start searching the forum for advice!
Congratualtions CraigLBC,
You learn from your first audit. You learn from your mistakes and get better. You also learn more or less what the auditor looks for so you'll know where to focus though this is not to say throw out the rest of the standard. After all this is about CONTINOUS IMPROVEMENT. CONGRATULATIONS!!!
it may not have been the score you wanted but you passed. Now the hard part keeping everyone on track. Very often staff (and management) relax after the audit, not realizing they will blink and its time for another audit.
Every step is one step closer :spoton:
Congratulations!
Hi Craiglbc!
Lesson well learned. I say, call for an emergency Management Review and document it with an official Minutes of the Man Rev Meeting. Have it signed by your Senior Management and lo, you have the objective evidence for your Corrective Action Report.
Good luck on your next audit.
Hello Craiglbc!
Congratu-olences! Those first audits sting! It does get better!
Couldn't have said it better myself! Congratulations on passing! It truly is a great achievement. When we had our pre-audit for BRC, after coming out of AIB, I thought we wouldn't have any trouble. Well needless to say, we failed 5 minutes into the audit (apparently you can't have matchbox cars in the cabinet drawers of your micro lab , who knew?? ) :hypocrite:
Anyway, the experience is like nothing else, you learn and grow and are given a chance to show this every year. Keep plugging away, they do get easier!
I've been lucky enough to only observe audits rather than being the auditee, but the one thing I've seen is the value of the Pre-assessment! I strongly recommend one of these before a certification audit to work out the bugs you are missing before going straight to a graded audit.
The plants I work with have each gone through them and one is looking to go through another one before seeking certification due to the amount of work that needed to be done.
I also agree that having AIB in place can be a hindrance because it lulls you into a false sense of security. This is another good reason for the Pre-assessment to fill in the gaps between the two systems.
Well said MlissaB,
The gap analysis was critical, and even though I completed the gap analysis, I was still told by the auditor (who was from AIB-CS) that some things may have been ok with an AIB audit but not for BRC. My recommendation after sitting through the 2 days of dissecting every piece of paperwork would be if your not sure, do the Pre-Audit. I was fortunate enough to have passed without one, but as the title says 'barely' :rock:
Hi Craiglbc,
I also recently gone through 1st BRC audit, and luckily we have a very supportive auditor. We got an A with six minor NC. I think we did good for this audit because our management staff have ISO 9001 background and other ISO certification (HACCP and ISO 14001). There are clauses that we misinterpret the requirement (lack of training according to the auditor), but somehow we manage to get the A. I just finished off to close the NCR issued and waiting for the certificates.
Hope you successfully close all the NCR raised :smile: