Quality Digest

Our procedures allow for calibration due dates to be calculated as "end of month" and our software has this feature built in. In a recent audit(internal, but by parent company auditors)this was challenged. We were chastised for "allowing gages to go past due before calibrating" even though we calibrate per procedure & (by our definition) rarely have anything past due that cannot be accounted for. The argument goes something like this: "If you calibrate a gage on the first day of the month, say it is due in 6 months and then calibrate it on the 2nd day of the sixth month, it was past due." Never mind that our procedure is written for this very process. Never mind that we have strict policies for shortening intervals when gages fail calibration. I would like to hear how other companies handle calibration due date calculations.

Thanks!