Manufacturing Audit
A practical starting point for assessing whether production resources, processes and controls support safe, efficient output of the required quality with reliable production records.
What are we trying to establish?
Determine whether production resources, processes and controls support safe, efficient output of the required quality with reliable production records.
Risks worth paying attention to
What should you request?
- Production plans and actual output reports
- Bill of materials and standard usage
- Raw material issue records
- Scrap and waste reports
- Downtime and breakdown reports
- Quality inspection and rejection records
- Shift and machine production reports
- Finished goods transfer records
Understand the process before testing.
- Who initiates, reviews and approves transactions?
- Which duties should be separated?
- What system controls and approval limits apply?
- How are exceptions identified, approved and monitored?
- How does management know key controls actually operated?
Practical tests you can perform
Compare planned versus actual production
Obtain appropriate evidence, investigate exceptions and document your conclusion.
Analyse downtime by machine and cause
Obtain appropriate evidence, investigate exceptions and document your conclusion.
Compare standard material usage with actual consumption
Obtain appropriate evidence, investigate exceptions and document your conclusion.
Review scrap trends and investigate abnormal losses
Obtain appropriate evidence, investigate exceptions and document your conclusion.
Test production quantities to source records
Obtain appropriate evidence, investigate exceptions and document your conclusion.
Review quality failures, rework and rejects
Obtain appropriate evidence, investigate exceptions and document your conclusion.
Assess line efficiency and capacity utilisation
Obtain appropriate evidence, investigate exceptions and document your conclusion.
Trace finished production to warehouse receipt
Obtain appropriate evidence, investigate exceptions and document your conclusion.
Things that should make you look deeper
- Transactions or activities outside normal patterns
- Missing or retrospective approvals
- Repeated exceptions without root-cause action
- Manual adjustments with weak supporting evidence
- Key controls dependent on one person
- Management reports that cannot be reconciled to source records
Questions that can open up the process
- What can go wrong in this process?
- Which controls are most important, and who performs them?
- Where does the process depend heavily on manual intervention?
- Which exceptions occur most often, and why?
- What information does management use to know the process is working?
Need a more detailed checklist?
Steal My Checklist contains ready-to-use audit procedures designed to help you structure fieldwork across key business areas.
Get Steal My Checklist