Custom app for inspection visits at the production site
During a control inspection, the certification body itself selects an element from production. The supplier provides in advance the identification of that element and the data relating to the application, checks it, and releases it for testing. This is a series of actions on the shop floor, under time pressure, with someone looking over your shoulder.
What happens during a visit
Following the issue of a quality declaration, the certification body carries out periodic assessments. The assessment of the quality system covers, at a minimum, the presence of a person responsible for managing the quality system, the presence and effective operation of the internal quality monitoring scheme, the measuring and testing facilities with their calibration and maintenance status, and the recording of measuring and testing results and the results themselves.
These are all things that are established on the shop floor. The inspector walks round, asks for a document, wants to see a measuring instrument and asks about the last calibration. If you have to fetch that from someone who isn't there at the time, the visit ends up waiting.
The type test adds the designated item. The body selects an item from production, preferably an assembled unit, and the supplier provides the identification and the data relating to the application in advance. During testing, a limited adjustment to the product is permitted for type tests.
What is found during the visit determines the rest. A finding with no owner and no deadline sits until the next visit, and then it's the first thing discussed. The sanctions policy follows the body's procedures, and those have a build-up.
How we build this
The core is the visit itself. A day with an assessor asking questions, and an organisation that has to be able to show what it does at that moment.
The documents and data that belong to this scheme are ready, so the visit doesn't start with searching.
The designated unit receives its identification and application data and is recorded as released for testing.
What is found is recorded with a photo and location while the inspector is still there.
Every finding gets a name and a date, because that is where a sanctions process either stalls or moves forward.
What the app does in practice
Recording during the visit carries the whole thing. What else you need depends on the number of certificates and the number of sites.
The visit as a file
Date, venue, schedule and attendees, with everything decided on the day linked to it.
Releasing the item with evidence
Identification, application data and a photo of the designated unit, recorded before testing begins.
Calibration on the measuring instrument
A code on the instrument shows the last calibration and maintenance status at the moment someone asks.
Finding with image and location
What was found, where, and what it looked like. Later, that is the difference between understanding it and remembering it.
Works without signal
Production halls rarely have good coverage. The app works offline and synchronises once a connection is available.
Follow-up until closed
From finding to measure to proof that it has been resolved, on a single track up to the next visit.
Who we build for
Who accompanies the visit differs from company to company. Four situations.
Quality staff
They walk alongside the inspector and are the ones who must be able to show things on the spot.
Production managers
They have to release an item without halting ongoing production.
Multiple sites
Whoever produces at several locations receives the same visit at each site, with different people and different habits.
Companies with multiple certificates
For them, someone comes by several times a year, each time with their own checklist.
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Assessment guidelines are revised and bodies change their procedures. Checklists, fields and schemes should be configurable and not hard-coded into the app.
Why Appfront
A visit lasts a day, not a document
What isn't recorded on the day gets reconstructed a week later from notes. We build the record for the moment itself.
The designated item needs preparation
Identification and application details must be in place before testing begins. That is not paperwork after the fact.
Calibration is checked at the instrument
Not in a list back at the office. A code on the measuring equipment gives the answer where the question is asked.
We do not certify
The judgement remains with the certification body. We make sure you go into the visit with what you need.
Security and privacy
What gets recorded during a visit includes measurement results, findings and images of your production. That is commercially sensitive, and the body that comes to inspect sometimes also visits your competitors. We set access by role and by location, give an auditor temporary and limited access, and log that access. Anything stored locally on the device is encrypted and can be remotely wiped if a device is lost.
For this subject, the reliability of the moment is what matters. A finding reworded after the visit, or a release backdated, undermines exactly what the certificate is meant to demonstrate. We record observations in an unalterable way with time, location and person, even when synchronisation happens later, and any correction appears as a visible correction alongside the original entry. How we handle security ourselves is described in our information security policy.
Frequently asked questions about inspection visits at the production site
Among other things, the person managing the quality system, the presence and operation of the internal quality monitoring schedule, the measuring facilities with their calibration and maintenance status, and the recorded measurement results and the results themselves.
The body designates an item from production, preferably an assembled specimen. The supplier provides in advance the identification and the data relating to the application, checks the item and releases it for testing.
Because a finding a week later is a note rather than an observation. With a photo and location attached, it remains possible later to see exactly what was observed.
Yes. Production halls rarely have good coverage. The app works locally and synchronises once connectivity returns, preserving the original time.
In the certificate file, where scope, visit rhythm and follow-up are kept. We describe this on our page about software for certificate scope and factory inspections.
Yes. Each schedule keeps its own checklist, but visits and findings sit in one stream. See our approach to building an app.
How long did the search take during your last visit?
Take the report of your last inspection visit and count how many points were only supplied after the fact. Each of them could have been available on the day itself if someone had been able to look it up. We build this as a standalone app or as part of a broader custom software project.