By Mike Barton
Public Affairs Specialist

NADEP Cherry Point employees successfully completed a battery of audits recently to hold on to the depot’s three International Organization for Standardization (ISO) certifications, as well as to gain a new, fourth certification.

Surveillance audits were conducted on three established ISO areas here May 10-14 to determine if the depot was still in compliance with ISO registration requirements. These included ISO 9001 – Quality Management System; ISO 14001 – Environmental Management System; and AS 9100 – Aviation Management System. New ground was covered during a registration audit for a fourth area, OHSAS 18001 – Occupational Health and Safety Assessment Series (Management System), to gain registration for the depot in this area. According to Dr. Bruce Laviolette, director of Corporate ISO Systems, this is the first known audit that has been done on all of these systems at the same time.

A collective sigh of silent relief swept through the conference room May 14 when the ISO audit team, from ABS Quality Evaluations, Inc., debriefed management personnel on the audit results. Not only had the depot passed the audit, it had done better than most could have hoped for. “Frankly, we haven’t done a safety audit with so few discrepancies and nonconformances for such a large size facility,” said Georgene Porter, OHSAS 18001 lead auditor.

Beck Bennett, the depot’s lead internal auditor and “acting” Command Monitoring Team program manager, explained that once the findings are “closed,” the ABS team will recommend registration for the depot in the new ISO area, OHSAS 18001. Once the completed audit is successfully evaluated at ABS, the depot will gain the new certification.

Although the audits were considered a success, the work is not over here. Two major and 24 minor nonconformances were discovered that must be corrected by mid-June to meet the 30-day equirement. “Follow-up is what counts now,” said Col. John Gumbel, the depot’s commanding officer. “We’re in a full-out sprint supporting (Operation Iraqi Freedom), and we’ve got to stay on top of our game.”

These audits do not mark the end of the process. Conformance to ISO standards will continue to be a requirement throughout the depot. If the same nonconformances are found in different areas of the NADEP during future audits, says Laviolette, they will be graded as repeat violations for the depot, a major hit. Audit results have been provided to ISO reps and management personnel as extra ammo against such negligence.

The next time the depot is scheduled to run the ISO audit gauntlet is in November, when all four areas will be reinspected. To armor the depot against repeat findings during future audits, root-cause analysis is expected for every nonconformance found in these recent audits. Recurrence of nonconformances, depending on their seriousness, said Bennett, could jeopardize our registration.

“It is important that we review these findings to determine where else they can occur,” said Bennett. “Once they are fixed, no one should assume that the whole command is fixed.” Bennett also emphasized the importance of the local ISO reps. He considers them to be the main information conduits on ISO issues between management and the workforce.

Many people worked hard to make the process a success. The auditors awarded special praise to the planners, production controllers and artisans for being very open and helpful. Thanks also went out to the depot employees who served as audit guides. This included Robert Toler, Jeff Lee, Liz Wagley, Patti Crowder, Pete Stinson, Bob King, Larry Owens and Beth Holland. “They did a great job of making sure that the auditors were where they were supposed to be and talking to the right people,” said Bennett.

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