Product audit: How to ensure quality and compliance
Tempo Team
Consumers expect the goods they buy to be functional, usable, and durable. If a product fails to meet these expectations, they’ll either return it or discard it. But no matter how the consumer responds to a faulty product – unless the vendor steps in – they’ll likely never buy from that company again.
Companies can avoid negative customer experiences by conducting routine product audits. This type of auditing is a quality management tool, comparing a finished product to established company, industry, and regulatory standards to determine if and where deficiencies lie. Regularly reviewing products to make sure they’re going to meet a customer’s expectations is key to maintaining quality standards.
Here’s what is meant by auditing and how the process works.
What is a product audit?
According to the American Society for Quality, product auditing means examining a manufactured good or service to ensure it meets customer expectations, specifications, and performance standards. The auditing process generally occurs after production but before the company ships the completed items to vendors or customers, but it can also take place in the product development stages.
Audits typically focus on batches, or groups of products produced together. If the goods fail to meet quality standards, the auditor documents the issue and informs the organization of nonconformance. The company can then rectify the situation.
For example, say a business produces stand mixers. During an audit, the analyst finds that a batch of mixers is the wrong shade of blue. The auditor recommends correcting the color, allowing the company to resolve the issue and paint the batch of mixers before the wrong color ships to customers.
What is the purpose of a product audit?
Product audits don’t only help identify flawed products. The auditing process also allows companies to:
Verify requirements: Product audits confirm products and services meet established specifications, performance standards, and customer needs.
Uncover opportunities: Audits conducted during the development stage identify process weaknesses early, allowing companies to proactively improve production and save headaches when manufacturing is in full swing.
Assess quality: Audits evaluate overall product quality and identify defects or deviations from expectations.
Identify trends: Regular product audits uncover and track product quality trends, allowing companies to address issues before they impact brand loyalty and company reputation.
Manage risks: Routine audits identify and mitigate product quality, safety, and compliance risks.
Maintain compliance: Audits ensure company products comply with industry regulations, standards, and best practices.
Reassure stakeholders: Product audits assure customers, management, and investors that the finished product meets required standards and protect the company from potential legal action if products fail.
How does a product audit differ from other types of audits?
Companies conduct different audits to gauge the efficiency and productivity of various departments. While product audits assess the quality of manufactured goods and services, process and system audits are other key audit classifications that focus on different aspects of the organization.
Process audits
Process audits have a broader scope than product audits, as they examine the entire manufacturing operations from start to finish. Beginning with the arrival of raw materials, process audits assess each production stage through to packaging and delivery. Auditors also evaluate functions supporting manufacturing, including human resources, equipment maintenance practices, and company facilities.
Auditors use two techniques to conduct their reviews: forward and backward auditing.
Forward auditing: This technique follows the production of a finished good, starting with the moment raw materials arrive at the factory and tracking the product through the supply chain until it reaches consumers.
Backward auditing: Backward auditing works in reverse. It involves sampling products currently on store shelves and tracing them back through the supply chain to their source, identifying potential issues and areas for improvement along the way.
System audits
A system audit is a comprehensive, ongoing examination of a company’s operations beyond production and manufacturing. It assesses the company’s systems to determine their effectiveness, efficiency, and compliance with industry standards and governmental regulations.
The audit process is holistic, examining:
Leadership’s commitment and customer focus
Management roles and responsibilities
Policies covering product quality
Operational planning, design, and control
Product release and market control
IT infrastructure, security protocols, and data management
Customer satisfaction
System, process, and product audits are crucial to an organization’s long-term success, fostering a culture of ongoing improvement. They also boost profitability and ensure processes effectively prevent faulty products from reaching the market, avoiding costly recalls that damage customer relationships and brand loyalty.
Product audit process steps
The product audit process follows a thorough, systematic approach to ensure batches of finished goods meet requirements and performance standards. Here’s what it entails.
1. Planning
The first step of a product audit is to identify which products or batches to evaluate. This step also establishes audit requirements and goals, such as:
Verifying conformity with specific requirements
Identifying defects
Assessing quality controls
Auditors also review documentation on:
Product specifications
Manufacturing processes
Quality assurance practices
Customer requirements
Based on their findings, auditors create a detailed audit plan that includes procedures, checklists, and methods for gathering evidence.
2. Fieldwork
Next, auditors conduct fieldwork, which involves inspecting the finished products on-site to ensure they meet the specified standards. This includes verifying the:
Dimensions
Functionality
Packaging
Labeling
Aesthetics
Other standards
During fieldwork, auditors also gather evidence to support their findings through observation, sampling, testing, and document reviews. They use this information to identify any deviations from regulatory and performance standards.
3. Evaluation
Once auditors finish gathering data, they analyze the results by comparing their findings against the established technical parameters and evaluation criteria. Based on these insights, they identify areas for improvement in the production and quality assurance processes.
4. Reporting and corrective actions
Once the auditors complete fieldwork, they prepare an audit report summarizing their findings. The report identifies noncompliance instances, provides supporting evidence, and gives the company a list of recommended corrective actions and instructions to address the issues.
5. Follow-up
After a set period, auditors return to the facility to determine whether the company has addressed the noncompliance. They also evaluate results to ensure product quality has improved.
Improving product audit efficiency with Tempo
Tempo’s advanced tracking, reporting, and compliance management features simplify data gathering to support product audit outcomes. When integrated with Jira Service Management, the Custom Charts project dashboard facilitates real-time monitoring and data analytics of key quality metrics, such as customer satisfaction, incident management, and request fulfillment. The system also provides audit visualizations to streamline assessment and documentation.
With the right platform in place, you’ll have more time to focus on improving product quality. Book a demo to boost your productivity today.
