Beacon Quality Blog

Consider the last time you conducted a layered process audit. What did you learn? How much insight did you get to improve the process? Did you have the opportunity for coaching and feedback?

If the answer to any of these questions was “not much,” then you’ve got work to do on your layered process audit checklists.

Layered process audits (LPAs) are a type of high-frequency audit common in automotive and aerospace manufacturing. The audits take place multiple times daily and require participation from all levels of the organization, creating a series of checks to catch process errors before they become defects.

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This layered process audit checklist template is intended to help automotive and aerospace suppliers get started with LPAs. Note that this LPA checklist is a starting point for ideas, and should be customized to the specific department, work area and process being audited.

As you create your own LPA checklist, try to limit it to 10 questions that take no longer than 10 minutes to answer. Questions should be:

• Objective: Use yes or no questions where yes means pass and no triggers mitigation or corrective action.
• Specific: Avoid terms like “properly” or “correctly.”
• Concise: People who are not process experts should be able to easily answer the questions.

 The LPA checklist is an editable Excel spreadsheet that you can alter to your specific needs. Directly download, and start using today! Note: Make sure to ‘scale to 1 page’ when printing in ‘landscape’ format for ease of use.

 

 

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Famous businessman Robert Half once said, “Asking the right questions takes as much skill as giving the right answers.”

It’s true whether we’re talking about interviewing and hiring—Half founded one of the largest global staffing firms—or whether we’re talking about quality management. The need to ask thoughtful questions to gain valuable information is especially critical when it comes to creating layered process audit (LPA) checklists.

In an LPA program, multiple layers of management audit high-risk processes at varying intervals, conducting daily checks that systematically reduce variation. These process audits are powerful because of their high frequency, and their ability to provide a real-time snapshot of shop floor processes critical to quality.

As for whether a company can achieve the biggest benefits from LPAs? That all depends on whether you have well-written questions—and how frequently you update them.

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