Resource Library/Audit Readiness and Internal Audit/Audit Finding Classification Guide
Audit Finding Classification Guide
How to decide whether what you found is a major nonconformity, a minor one, an opportunity for improvement or an observation, and how to write each finding so the process owner can act on it.
- Word
- fillable PDF
- Worked example
- Aegis Insights
Page 1 of the PDF. Every resource includes a fully worked example.
The problem it solves
Two auditors look at the same evidence and one writes a minor, the other an OFI, and a third would have called it major. Findings get argued down at the closing meeting because the evidence is vague, repeats get written as new minors, and serious breakdowns get softened to keep the peace. The result is a program nobody trusts and corrective actions sized to the wrong problem. This guide gives one set of definitions, a decision path, the tests we use for major against minor, twenty classified scenarios from aerospace machine shops, and a three-part way of writing a finding that holds up.
Who uses it
Internal auditors and lead auditors; quality managers who review findings before the report goes out; process owners who want to understand why a finding was classified the way it was.
When
During the auditors' review before the closing meeting, when writing the report, and when training new auditors. Adopt the definitions in your internal audit procedure so every auditor uses the same ones.
Free to use, change and copy, in your own organization or with your clients; add your own logo, keep the Aegis credit. Part of: Internal Audit Execution Kit. Clause references: 9.2.2, 10.2.1 (with the clause of each finding) (numbers only; use your own licensed copy of the standard).
A management aid, not certification or a registrar audit. Using it does not by itself show conformity to AS9100D or any other standard.
How to put it to work
Chapters of our free guides that use this tool.
- The Internal Audit Execution workflowThe Internal Audit Execution Kit Handbook, chapter 2
- Conducting the auditThe Internal Audit Execution Kit Handbook, chapter 7
- Findings that hold upThe Internal Audit Execution Kit Handbook, chapter 8
- Running the programThe Internal Audit Execution Kit Handbook, chapter 12
- Setting it up in thirty daysThe Internal Audit Execution Kit Handbook, chapter 14
- Worked example: one audit through the whole kitThe Internal Audit Execution Kit Handbook, chapter 15
Related resources
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Kit handbook
The Internal Audit Execution Kit Handbook
A complete internal audit program for aerospace suppliers: plan it from risk, audit processes the way they really run, write findings that hold up, get responses that fix causes, and walk into external audits with nothing to hide and nothing to hunt for.
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These tools help you run the work by hand. When you want the whole picture of your quality system from the records you already keep, that's what the AeroAssure Audit Defense Pack and the IA9100 Transition Gap Analysis do.