Getting ready for an inspection

An inspection asks two different questions. The first is "do you have a plan?" — that's your preventive control plan, and it's a document. The second is "are you actually following it?" — and that's the one that gets people, because it's answered by hundreds of small records rather than one file.

Crown holds both. This article is what to pull, in what order, when a visit is coming.

First: find your gaps

Before printing anything, look at the two places Crown scores you against the same signals an inspector reads.

1. Check your QMS completeness score

   It reads your setup and operations together and names what's missing. See Your QMS completeness score.

2. Check compliance health on your dashboard

   Overdue calibrations, expiring evidence, programs that have gone quiet. See Compliance health on your dashboard.

3. Clear the unsigned backlog

   Monitoring entries that were recorded but never closed and signed are the single most common soft spot. An unsigned check reads as an incomplete one.

The four documents to have ready

1. Your preventive control plan. The plan itself, from Food Safety → PCP document. Check its pre-flight warnings before you generate, and leave the appendices switched on so your program documents, safety data sheets and label artwork travel with it as one file. See Your preventive control plan document.

2. Your recall plan. Kept current, with your recall contacts filled in and at least one mock recall on record for the year. See Your recall plan.

3. Your operations record. On the Food Safety page, select Operations record. It summarises the last 90 days of operational evidence: verifications recorded, open findings, which programs are on track and which are overdue, and the chemicals in active use with their safety data sheet state.

This is the document that answers the second question. The PCP says what you intend to do; the operations record shows you have been doing it.

4. Batch records for whatever they name. An inspector will pick a lot. Print that batch's full record — identity, ingredients consumed, production steps, deviations, lab tests, finished goods, notes. See Starting a batch.

What they're likely to ask, and where it lives

Every one of these is a live lookup, not a document you need in advance. That's the point of keeping records in one system — see Reading the audit trail for what an inspector can be shown about any single record.

During the visit

Record what they find, while they're still there. If an inspector raises a finding, log it as a deviation before the day ends, with the disposition you agreed. A finding you write up a week later from memory is worth much less than one recorded on the day. See Logging a deviation.

Use "Not applicable — no product affected" where it fits. Plenty of inspection findings are records or procedure issues that never touched material. Recording a material outcome that didn't happen makes your record harder to defend, not easier.

Note the mock-recall findings too. If you run an exercise during the visit, the findings and corrective actions box on the Traceability page saves them against your recall plan.

After

Close the loop while it's fresh: work each finding through to a disposition, attach whatever evidence the corrective action produced, and re-check your completeness score. The next inspection starts from what this one left behind.

What's next

The two scores worth watching between inspections are QMS completeness and compliance health. Keeping those clear is what makes the week before a visit uneventful.