NAFA member, Shailon Ian, CEO of Vinci Aircraft Inspections, discusses audits.
It is widely agreed among quality management professionals that audits, both internal and external, are a powerful tool within quality management systems. Unfortunately, that is where the consensus ends.
When it comes to the details—where the devil lies—every manager and specialist has their own approach to audits, with distinct focuses, frequencies, and expected outcomes.
Excluding cases where an audit is merely conducted to check a box on another audit’s checklist, the vast majority of audits yield little practical value.
In theory, audits are an excellent concept. Their mere existence should encourage the auditee to be more diligent. However, in practice, managers often learn to comply with the checklist without considering the efficiency or effectiveness of their actions.
On the other side, often constrained by limited time, auditors rush through checklists in a superficial review, failing to probe deeper into the auditee’s responses.
Moreover, audit results are frequently scattered and disconnected. The task of transferring data from a report into a control system is often overlooked in daily operations. As a result, reports are either stored away in company servers or left hanging in folders, only to be retrieved when an internal auditor requests them.
All of this indicates that the audit process is stuck in the past. A revolution is needed to make audits more effective and truly impactful. Just as industries are transforming into Industry 4.0, audits must leap from Audit 1.0 straight to Audit 4.0.
But how?
The first step is to leverage industry forums focused on quality and operational safety to standardize key parameters:
● Interpretation of quality or safety standards being audited
● Standardization of acceptable compliance methods for the 20% most critical items
● Audit frequency for the same scope
● Auditor training and qualification
● Adoption of technology to streamline the audit process and integrate with existing company systems
Currently, companies within the same industry, subject to similar quality and safety standards, handle these aspects in vastly different ways.
Some industries even have forums for developing and revising quality and safety standards, yet they diverge in interpretation and evaluation during audits.
Beyond standardizing the interpretation of requirements, companies should establish clear, acceptable compliance methods for the 20-30% most critical items, with a structured approval process for each Means of Compliance (MOC).
Similarly, audit intervals and scopes vary widely. From my time as an auditor for the Civil Aviation Authority, I often compare audits to two different approaches in a burger chain: one company places an auditor at the end of the assembly line to bite into every sandwich to “ensure quality,” while another trains its team and regularly audits the process. Which one delivers better-quality burgers?
Auditing everything, one by one, is not always the best solution.
Even today, audits still heavily rely on the experience and judgment of auditors. While expertise is valuable, this inconsistency poses a challenge for data analysts trying to translate diverse observations into actionable insights.
Auditors should undergo structured training and qualification programs to reduce data variability and ensure consistency.
Lastly, companies must adopt tools that genuinely assist auditors in their work—not just digital forms or repositories for images and records. Simply digitizing an old process is not innovation. Instead, we need systems that support data collection and analysis using advanced machine learning and data processing technologies.
The time for revolution is now. Audit 4.0 is the tool that quality and safety management systems need to transform raw data into meaningful, actionable insights.
This article was written by Shailon Ian, CEO of Vinci Aircraft Inspections, and published to NAFA on April 9, 2025.