Y

ears ago, when I was a field quality rep (source inspector), part of my job was to audit prospective suppliers. The basis of the audits was MIL-Q-9858A, the military quality system. Most audits were simply me sitting across the desk from the head guy or gal asking questions. Do you do this? Do you do that? Of course the answers were always correct.

After the audit, I would tour the facility to get an idea if the person was telling the truth. The tour was actually more effective than the sit-down question and answer period. I became very good at judging the quality of the work we could expect just by looking around. I called it Audit by Looking Around (ABLA). You can actually say ABLA. It has kind of a Latin ring to it. I became very skilled at ABLA and to this day I can spot an outdated calibration sticker at 20 yards. I also discovered that you can learn a lot about a supplier by peeking into the dumpster. One other trick: When visiting a supplier, watch what people are carrying around. It’s probably the problem of the day.

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