Preparing for an audit team from China: 7 rules for working with your interpreter

Plants supplying the Chinese market or operating within the supply chain of a Chinese group regularly face audits lasting two to three days. Factory inspections under CCC (China Compulsory Certification), periodic surveillance visits by certification bodies and customer audits follow a similar flow, and the interpreter’s role in that flow is often more decisive than expected.

1. Share the agenda and scope in advance

The interpreter needs to know the agenda, the product group under audit and the reference standards beforehand. If the procedures to be reviewed are known, terminology can be prepared directly from them.

2. Build a glossary from your quality documents

The quality manual, control plan, calibration records and the previous audit report are the core sources for a glossary. In-house abbreviations and internal names should be settled before the audit; every minute spent explaining a machine’s nickname on the line tour comes out of audit time.

3. Decide who speaks at the opening meeting

Decide in advance who presents on behalf of the plant, who answers questions and who speaks on matters requiring a decision. Several people giving different answers to the same question can be perceived by the auditor as inconsistency.

4. Answer in short, complete sentences

In consecutive interpreting, long and nested sentences increase the risk of lost meaning. Giving answers in short segments and continuing only once each segment has been interpreted ensures the auditor receives the full answer.

5. Do not guess

If a question cannot be answered with certainty, saying that the record will be checked is better than a guess. The interpreter does not interpret or complete the answer, only conveys what is said; the content of the answer remains the plant team’s responsibility.

6. Clarify findings at the closing meeting

Each finding read out at the closing meeting should be confirmed together with the clause and record it is based on. If the scope of a finding is not clarified in the meeting, the corrective action plan may aim at the wrong target.

7. Keep corrective action correspondence in the same terms

Corrective action reports and evidence prepared after the audit should use the same terminology as the audit itself. Different renderings across documents can cause a finding expected to be closed to be questioned again.