ABSTRACT
On the importance of the process, you need to establish to whom is it important – to the customer, the managing director, the public or your immediate superior? You also need to establish the importance of the activity on the effect of noncompliance with the planned arrangements. Importance also applies to what may appear minor decisions in the planning or design phase but if the decisions are incorrect it could result in major problems downstream. If not detected, getting the units of measure wrong can have severe consequences particularly if the customer specified dimensions in metric units and the purchase order has them specified in imperial units. Rather than check the figures or the units of measure, audits should verify that the appropriate controls are in place to detect such errors before it is too late.
