Abstract

David Phillips had a great article in QP in which he described the right way to document nonconformances by answering: What is the source requirement? What specific evidence was observed? How does the evidence demonstrate a lack of compliance with the requirement?  I wish I could report that auditors follow Phillips’ framework for writing nonconformances faithfully, but that’s not always the case. Before even getting to a nonconformance, there are two questions that deserve consideration: "What, exactly, is a requirement?" and "What is a nonconformance?"