This is one of those areas that over auditing may have done a disservice to the original intent. If you think about it, the checklist idea for brittle materials is a classic closing of the barn door after the horse ran away. Best in class systems think a little differently about it - prevention first. Continually chasing NC's to add more and more is far less effective than removing the risk managing it, and staff awareness.
Having a thought process like this:
1. identify brittle materials that post a risk to the product
2. remove wherever possible, protect where not
3. put practices and training in place to mitigate potential risk by damage or use
If the inspection ever turns up damage or breakage - the impulse to write a work order and replace the materials should be replace with a re-assessment of steps 2 and 3.
The boiler room example above is a good one: if the amount of time between checks is extended - what happens when you find something - assume everything since the last check is at risk? Potentially better to restrict traffic from boiler room to processing, and get staff in the boiler room upskilled to continually monitor for signs of damage, and she inspection, as they are in a glass area prior to going to common or open product areas.
I remember a sign off audit at a facility whose glass register had gone over 30 pages - and took one employee 3 days a month to complete. Everything including coffee pots in the front office made it onto the list. Hard to imagine how this activity, and staff investment made the product much safer.
By all means create the check list - move some onto pre-operational checklists to get them done frequently where necessary, and by the operators themselves. Glass checklists should be managed - one of those things where too much is not better than too little, in my opinion.
John
