My Audit Experience Part 1

It has been a pretty interesting day at work for me during the past few weeks. My daily routine of sitting down in front of the computer programming the Yield Module from morning to evening was finally interupted by sitting in for an audit session and the company quarterly annual meeting. I had requested Mr. Elfiz for permission to participate in the audit to get some in depth regarding the nature of it after hearing about it from my informative collegues where news are spread to the entire office by their ever resounding voice of theirs. News and updates of the company are transmitted verbally across the cubicles and it only takes an attentive ear to capture it. I was unfortunate to miss the Manufacturing Audit which took place on Tuesday night where most of the module head had to stay back until 2 am in the morning as auditors reviews their setup and process. Despite not knowing about it earlier, I decided to join in for the other audits to come which included the Quality Assurance Process (QAP) and the New Product Initialisation (NPI).

My first audit on Quality Assurance Process (QAP) took place on Wednesday. However, my initial response to it was not a pleasant experience. I made my into the line the meet the group of people who were going around the line to audit who were previously giving an explanation of its QA Process in Common Room 1. The lady whom I met earlier to ask for permissing to attend the audit did not call me back as intended to. I made by way then to the FA Lab where I had learned that the audit was going on there. I stood outside the lab door as there was a banner that indicated "No Admittance without Permission". I did not there enter the lab as I was a trainee who was not familiar with the people in the audit group and had no intention to disturb their ongoing audit. I stood outside the door smiling to those inside waiting for someone to call me in. However, I was only met by blank and cold stares. I stood outside there for 15 minutes as though I was invincible being. It was a weird moment and I felt stupid. I had intentions to leave as time was nearing the end of office hour. My previous experience of waiting outside someones door somehow kept me there. My worse experience as I recalled was sitting outside a FCM specialist office for two hours before I finally met him regarding about the booking of venue for Cyber Christmas Exhibition last year.

Its an awkward feeling to be ignored. I have began to slowly adapt to the non friendly and hospitable environment that seem to be a common practice by those in the manufacturing industry. It is hard to feel welcome at my company as friendly smiles are usually repaid by blank stares instead. Whats make it even worse is one of my supervisor who is the Quality Assurance Section Manager display such characteristics. He does not seem to be interested in your welfare at all. Chances of one making a conversation with someone or even befriending them would normally had to be work related. It seems that everyone seem to be preoccupied with their work and do not bother areas or people that are not associated or involve with them. Racial and social discrimination are quite obvious during breaks or lunch as people tend to mix with their own race or people of the same level as them. It is a rare occasion to see a mixed environment where there is racial harmony and status breakdown where Malay, Chinese and Indian are able to mixed around with operators, technicians, trainees, engineers and managers. It looks like it would take a long time to be able to know everyone that are around you. I guess its humans to be a divided community.

Coming back to the story, I was fortunate that someone notice my existence and decided to come out to ask of my intentions of waiting outside the door. I told that I had wanted to join them in their audit and I did not enter because I had no permission to do so was an answer that seem to make me look stupid although I felt I had taken that I had been neutral in my conduct so as to not cross borders as a trainee. My audit session brought me from the FA Lab, to the Prepack Unit and the Storage Unit where the last two places were areas where the end product would arrive for inspection before being packaged and stored for delivery to customers. It was interesting to see how the auditer, Mr Lau was really detailed in going through the process by checking the machines, speaking with the people in charge and gathering data from the logbooks which they keep as records of their daily activity. There was an interesting time when we had to go back and forth from the prepack unit and the storage area to check for samples from old and current stock by counterchecking the GSO number that were on the package with those registered in the logbook.

It was interesting to see the way Mr Lau conducted himself to really understand what was really going on and to dismiss any uncertainty by checking the data one by one. I could hear whispers and murmouring in the background as they were beginning to feel restless after such a long audit day and had to cope with the auditer thorough inspection that had extended past the working hour. My audit tour ended around 6.15 pm and made by way back the cubicle to pack up. Mr Elfiz asked me about the audit and began explaining certain details regarding about audit and becoming an auditer. He had previously taken a course on that for internal auditing within PSS and mention the prospect about becoming a auditer which do pay quite well. It was an interesting experience to learn from it and the bad experience that I went through was totally forgotten. I decided to attend the next audit at the following day.