10 replies to this topic

[tnguyen1300]

I can't remember which post I read about the horrors dealing with witness/shadow audits, but what are some of the reasons I can provide to CB in order to refuse them? Or is it not possible to refuse? This is for an organic audit. 

 

Thanks! 

[SQFconsultant]

Very difficult to refuse a witness audit and really what is the issue with it to begin with - for me, I was one of the first SQF Auditors in the US and then as they added more auditors I would witness their audits which was a requirement by SQFI itself before an otherwise very experienced auditor could start doing SQF audits on their own.

 

Same things with Organic audits, same thing with most of the certifications.

 

If the concern is that you don't want 4 eyes instead of 2 looking at your facility/documentation, just explain that concern to the OCB and you may want to reinforce that when they come in for the audit.

[Miss Frankie]

I went thru one SQF audit where a new (to SQF) auditor had a senior auditor shadow her.  
We had no issues with it.  

I do remember she dinged us on not stressing Safe Quality Foods enough in our paperwork.   Not sure if it's because she was new to SQF, being shadowed, or if was just a thing she wanted. (every auditor is different) Didn't go to bad, we scored a 92.

 

I was talking to a USDC auditor.  His boss was going to shadow him on an audit, to make sure he was performing audits correctly. He did give us a heads up that his boss was very strict.  Some things he'd consider an observation he may have to ding us on. I left that company before that audit happened, so I don't know how it went.  But the USDC auditor was a good one, by the book, but very fair. I'd known him a long time, and he knew I'd get things done if he listed them as an observation (and If I wanted something done, he's also list it as an observation so the company would have to deal with it)

[jfrey123]

My first SQF audit was also the first for the company where I worked at the time, and the CB used it as a training experience for a new auditor with a shadowing senior auditor.  It straight up sucked.  The senior auditor purposely tried to mess with us during walkthroughs, tried to create situations for the trainee to find violations.  And it also appeared to make the trainee overeager to impress the senior.  Senior would "quiz" the trainee often, pointing and saying "what do you think of that?" and you could tell the trainee was unsure if it was finding worthy or if he needed to prove why it wasn't a finding.

 

Owner didn't like it at all and told the CB we would change bodies if they tried to use us for training ever again.  We defended the position saying we found nothing in the code requiring us to allow two auditors on site and stating their constant private conferencing caused unreasonable delay.  This organic audit might be a bit different, but I would ask for clarification on the role this witness/shadow serves at a minimum.  And once they arrive, have them discuss those roles and identify which is officially auditing you.

[Setanta]

I would try to avoid another person shadowing during an audit. I understand the need and was very enthusiastic about helping the CB out with this.

 

In our instance, the trainee was supposed to JUST observe the audit. But instead, he ended up asking so many questions of us and his auditor, it was aggravating. He challenged us, he challenged the auditor, and we were so behind after one day, I think he was done as an auditor before the end of the audit.

 

If they are going to shadow, that needs to be the last thing they do before they go live as an auditor, not something to see if they might like doing the job.

[MDaleDDF]

I've had a few shadow audits and they went fine.  If I had an experience like Setenta, I would literally say to the shadow "Pipe down.   You're here to observe, and you can ask questions after.   This is my audit with that auditor, not yours..." and I would wager the auditor would back that up.   The sshadows I had were quiet as far as letting my audit go forward, and they were there to audit the auditor, so it went well.

[Gelato Quality Lead]

Our first audit for Costco had two Costco food safety head honchos shadowing our auditor. It went smoothly, the two shadows were mere shadows with most of their questions being out of pure curiosity of our company rather than affecting the audit in any way.

[tnguyen1300]

Thank you everyone for your inputs! This will be my first shadow audit and the company's (to my knowledge) so I imagine I don't have grounds to refuse. I have ongoing issues with our organic CB so I am just worried how that will play out. 

[mgourley]

Don't know how in depth your Organic audits are, but IMEX, the ones I have been involved with are generally a joke.
The auditor is in and out in about 4 hours.

 

Marshall

[Bo16]

We had a supervisor shadow a new auditor (new to the scheme, not new to auditing).  He was respectful of both us and the auditor, in fact he pulled back the auditor when he questioned our pest control officers filling of our outside bait stations because one of them was empty, the auditor actually said the PCO could not have filled the bait and was insinuated that he was falsifying the documentation.  Luckily we had outside cameras and pulled footage of a small squirrel taking the bait out of the box and eating it on top of the box. 

 

We did add additional PCO rounds to the outside of the building after this audit.

[Hoosiersmoker]

We had an audit with a shadow. I used the shadow to ask questions I was interested in. An auditor can't (technically) consult but the shadow person wasn't auditing so I asked her a LOT of questions during the audit. I felt like it was an opportunity to pick the brains of an auditor free of charge!