Over the past decades PIEK has become known in all of Europe and far beyond as the prominent IPC training center. But unfortunately, not everyone knows that we also offer other services.
One of these services that we offer apart from conducting training sessions are ESD audits. And we have been doing that for many years at home and abroad. Our auditors are very experienced in this area and have an extensive knowledge of ESD, the ESD standards and how to implement them in the daily practice.
Just like you regularly have your car get a MOT to guarantee road safety, it would be good to have your ESD control program and its implementation in the daily practice of your company checked on a regular basis also. And who would a better partner to do this than PIEK?
Now you might say, yes, but we already regularly conduct our own internal audits so why should we have one performed by a third party. That may be true on the one hand, but not on the other. What can I tell you about this? First of all, that you could compare that with a butcher inspecting his own meat. Furthermore, your own internal audit (which actually is not an audit but called compliance verification in the ESD standards) and the audit we perform has a different meaning.
Even though the IEC 61340-5-1 doesn’t state that an ESD control program has to be audited by an external organization on a regular basis (this might be demanded by your customers), it is advisable. Mandatory however are the compliance verifications within your company, in which the ESD coordinator is responsible for. These are described in IEC 61340-5-1 and the measurements that must be performed are described in IEC 61340-5-4. The approach here is that the ESD coordinator or someone appointed by him, compares the actual situation as it is lived in your company with the situation as described in the ESD control program that you have developed within your company. He randomly takes the required measurements and writes a report. But we all know that if you work in a certain environment every day that you become “blind” for deviations, you learn to life with it.
We know the expression “it takes a pair of fresh eyes to get a different perspective”, and this often also applies when our auditors perform an audit. Your ESD coordinator maybe plays in the same soccer team as the colleagues he must check in the context of his function. Often this makes it difficult to point out to a colleague if something is “not quite right”. This is obviously not the case when we perform an audit.
Besides that an external audit has a different character. This is because it also checks whether the ESD control program (still) fulfills the criteria from the applicable standards. Also, the mandatory elements described in the standards are checked, like for instance documentation, ESD coordinator, training plan, product qualification, compliance verification plan, ESD control items etc. Our auditors work systematically and examine your entire ESD program based on a checklist and the deviations from the standard requirements are recorded. Thus, an audit is standardized but nevertheless performed in an individual manner, based on your specific needs in your company situation.
Along with every audit we perform we give a written report containing suggestions for improvement, which our auditor discusses with you during a final meeting. And you get a certificate which gives your customers the guarantee that your company complies with the regulations as these are laid down in the European IEC 61340-5-1 and IEC 61340-5-3 standards. And if you want to be assured that you meet all the usual globally used ESD standards you might even choose the option of adding the American ANSI/ESD S20.20 standard within the focus of the audit. This then goes on “in one go” as a manner of speaking.
Our auditors:
Our auditors are NOT: salesmen who provide you with nice sales pitches trying to sell you all kinds of ESD control items and are most interested in their margins.
Our auditors ARE: impartial specialists, well-trained professionals with expertise that give you an honest, pragmatic advice on improvements and investigate your ESD program and its implementation in practical life based on the regulations in the ESD standards IEC 61340-5-1 and IEC 61340-5-3.
ESD coordinator training
By the way, if you, as it is prescribed in the basic standard, the IEC 61340-5-1, have got an ESD coordinator in your company or would like to install one, you might consider having him (or her) trained by us. We have our special developed “ESD Plantauditor” training in which the participants become ESD Awareness and knowledge of the ESD standards. It also shows them how they can set up an ESD control program plan and how to go through the required measurements for the compliance verification. The certificate obtained here not only gives them self-confidence but also regard within your company and with external contacts like customers and suppliers.
