When Anastacio Baker and Robert Brown attended a “Lead Auditors Training
Course” in Curacao they found their approach to their jobs fully
validated. “The course gave us the opportunity to evaluate ourselves;
how we do our job versus how it’s done internationally. We came pretty
close to the criteria,” said Baker.
The intense training was held from September 21 to 30. Instructors from
SCGS Nederland BV went in depth on auditing with airport officials from
Curacao, Bonaire, St. Maarten and Aruba. The course was organized
through the Department of Civil Aviation in Curacao. “The intention was
to bring all islands on the same page as far as auditing is concerned,”
said Baker. He defined auditing as “evaluating oneself and the
organization one works for. “When you audit you look for shortcomings in
the organization so that they can be corrected. Auditing aims at making
an airport better,” he said.
The Manager of the Quality Assurance Department (QAD) said the course
highlighted the position of the auditor in the entire organization. “It
gave us a measurement of how far we are from our target.
The nine-day training was split into two sessions; the first session
involved two days of intense practical and theoretical work, looking at
case studies and exploring three bulky manuals, including the ISO 9000
manual on standardization quality.
The second part of the training lasted five days, culminating in a 2,5
hour exam. “That exam was so rigid it took me every minute of the time
allotted to finish,” said Baker.
QAD officer Robert Brown was proud of the fact that the St. Maarten team
constantly stood out in class. “It seemed that we were doing a lot of
things correctly in our department. We were following the criteria and
seemed to be doing a lot of things other participants had been
overlooking. The instructor was impressed,” he said.
He credited Baker’s direction. “From when I was transferred to this
department, I followed Baker’s guidelines. Now I have a better sense of
why I am doing things the way I am doing them,” he said.
The QAD officials were happy they got to attend the training. “Seventy
percent of our daily tasks are along the line of auditing. It’s a very
broad task,” he said.
Baker said the course also gave his department a better approach toward
people that have to be audited. “Generally people are defensive when
they have to be audited. During the course we learned how to put the
person audited at ease,” he said.
QAD is now planning to put a course together, to share the knowledge
obtained in Curacao. “The goal is to give other departments a better
idea of how they can audit themselves internally. That would make it
easier for QAD to audit them and it will make the entire auditing
process more transparent and synchronized for future external audits,”
Baker explained.
