How ETQ Audit Management Software Streamlines Compliance and Reduces Costs

Audits are essential for maintaining compliance and operational excellence, but they’re often resource-intensive, time-consuming and prone to inefficiencies when managed manually. ETQ Reliance® transforms audit management from a reactive burden into a proactive quality driver, helping manufacturers stay perpetually audit-ready, reduce audit timeframes, eliminate findings and cut compliance costs significantly.

The Challenge of Traditional Audit Management

Many manufacturers struggle with fragmented audit processes spread across spreadsheets, emails and disconnected systems. This creates several problems:

• No centralized view of audit activities across multiple sites
• Difficulty tracking audit findings and corrective actions
• Limited ability to identify trends and prevent recurring issues
• Excessive time spent preparing for audits and responding to findings
• Inconsistent audit processes across the organization
• Last-minute scrambling to gather documentation and evidence when audits are announced

How ETQ Audit Management Software Works

ETQ Reliance provides a comprehensive, integrated platform that automates and centralizes the entire audit lifecycle. Here’s how the key features deliver measurable benefits.

Centralized Audit Planning and Scheduling

ETQ Reliance enables organizations to plan, schedule and coordinate all audit activities from a single system. Organizations gain complete visibility into all audit activities across multiple sites and can proactively manage audit schedules to avoid resource conflicts and ensure consistent coverage. This centralized approach also ensures audit readiness by maintaining a systematic internal audit program that identifies compliance gaps before external auditors do.

With ETQ Reliance Centralized Planning and Scheduling, you can:

• Create audit calendars
• Assign auditors
• Define audit scopes
• Track progress in real time

Configurable Audit Templates and Checklists

ETQ Reliance allows you to create standardized audit templates and checklists that can be customized for different audit types, such as internal audits, supplier audits, regulatory audits and customer audits. Auditors save time by not recreating audit plans from scratch, and organizations ensure compliance with regulatory standards and internal procedures through standardized processes.

Wabtec conducts their supplier audits in ETQ Reliance, ensuring the company complies with all regulatory and customer requirements. This standardized approach has been critical to the company’s strong new product introduction strategy.

With ETQ Reliance Audit Templates, you can:

• Build standardized templates for consistent processes
• Customize checklists for specific audit types
• Ensure compliance with regulatory standards
• Maintain flexibility for unique requirements

Automated Workflow and Task Assignment

ETQ Reliance automatically routes audit tasks to the appropriate personnel, sends notifications and tracks completion status. Organizations significantly reduce audit cycle time while ensuring nothing falls through the cracks. Trane reduced cycle time by up to 87%, with a 50% cycle time reduction on average after implementing ETQ Reliance across its quality processes.

With ETQ Reliance Automated Workflows, you can:

• Route tasks automatically to appropriate personnel
• Send notifications to keep teams informed
• Track completion status across all activities
• Escalate overdue items to prevent delays
• Maintain complete audit trails

Real-Time Finding and Observation Capture

Auditors can document findings, observations and evidence directly in the system during the audit from desktop or mobile devices. This eliminates the delays and potential errors associated with transcribing handwritten notes after the audit is complete, enabling faster closure of audit findings.

With ETQ Reliance Real-Time Capture, you can:

• Document findings during audits on any device
• Attach photos and supporting documentation
• Capture observations as they happen
• Eliminate transcription errors
• Speed up finding closure

Integrated Corrective Action Management

When auditors identify findings, ETQ Reliance automatically initiates corrective action processes. The system links findings to corrective actions, tracks root cause analysis and verifies effectiveness of corrective measures. Organizations close the loop faster and prevent recurrence of issues. Owen Mumford achieved zero FDA 483 observations across all four manufacturing sites inspected since 2015.

With ETQ Reliance Corrective Action Integration, you can:

• Automatically initiate corrective actions from findings
• Link findings to root cause analysis
• Track corrective measure implementation
• Verify effectiveness of corrections
• Prevent issue recurrence

Comprehensive Reporting and Analytics

ETQ Reliance provides robust reporting capabilities that enable organizations to analyze audit results, identify trends and make data-driven decisions. Leadership gains insights into systemic quality issues and can focus improvement efforts where they’ll have the most impact.

FUJIFILM consolidated its external audits into an integrated continuous assessment, greatly reducing the cost to maintain registration to both ISO 9001 and ISO 14001. Cost savings came through a reduction in the number of audits required, shorter audits because of a centralized system and fewer auditors utilized per audit.

With ETQ Reliance Reporting and Analytics, you can:

• Track audit completion rates
• Analyze finding categories and trends
• Monitor time to close findings
• Evaluate auditor performance
• Generate executive dashboards

Maintaining Continuous Audit Readiness

One of the most significant advantages of ETQ Reliance is how it transforms organizations from reactive audit preparation to continuous audit readiness. Rather than scrambling when an audit is announced, organizations maintain a perpetual state of compliance that makes any audit—whether internal, regulatory, customer or supplier—a routine event rather than a stressful disruption.

ETQ Reliance creates audit readiness through several mechanisms:

Centralized Documentation Repository All audit evidence, quality records, procedures and compliance documentation are stored in a single, organized system. When auditors request documentation, teams can retrieve it instantly rather than searching through file cabinets, email archives or multiple disconnected systems.

Always-Current Compliance Status The system provides real-time visibility into compliance status across all sites and operations. Leadership can see at a glance which areas are audit-ready and which require attention, enabling proactive remediation before external auditors arrive.

Continuous Internal Auditing Organizations can conduct frequent internal audits without additional burden, identifying and addressing issues before external auditors find them. This continuous assessment approach means there are no surprises during regulatory or customer audits.

Automated Compliance Monitoring ETQ Reliance tracks regulatory requirements, monitors compliance metrics and alerts teams to potential issues before they become findings. Organizations can demonstrate due diligence and systematic compliance rather than ad-hoc responses.

Pre-Audit Confidence With complete audit trails, documented corrective actions and evidence of continuous improvement readily accessible, teams approach audits with confidence rather than anxiety. The question shifts from “Are we ready?” to “Which evidence would you like to review first?”

Companies using ETQ Reliance report dramatically reduced audit preparation time—often from weeks to just days or hours—because they’re already maintaining the evidence and documentation auditors need. This continuous readiness also reduces the risk of surprise findings and the costly corrective actions they trigger.

With ETQ Reliance Audit Readiness capabilities, you can:

• Maintain centralized, instantly accessible audit evidence
• Monitor compliance status in real time across all sites
• Conduct frequent internal audits without resource strain
• Identify and remediate issues before external auditors arrive
• Approach regulatory and customer audits with confidence
• Reduce audit preparation time from weeks to days

Supplier Audit Management

For organizations that rely on external suppliers, ETQ Reliance offers specialized capabilities for supplier audits. Organizations reduce supply chain risk and ensure supplier quality meets requirements. Companies using ETQ Reliance for supplier audits report improved supplier performance and faster resolution of supplier issues.

With ETQ Reliance Supplier Audit Management, you can:

• Schedule and coordinate supplier audits
• Track supplier performance over time
• Integrate results with supplier qualification
• Connect to supplier corrective actions
• Maintain supplier audit history

Mobile Access for Field Audits

ETQ Reliance offers mobile capabilities that allow auditors to conduct audits on tablets or smartphones, even in offline mode. Auditors can conduct audits anywhere, from manufacturing floors to supplier facilities, without being tethered to a desktop computer.

With ETQ Reliance Mobile Access, you can:

• Conduct audits on tablets or smartphones
• Work offline when connectivity is limited
• Automatically sync data when online
• Access audit information in the field
• Complete audits without desktop dependency

Quantifiable Results from Real Manufacturers

We’ve already mentioned a few of the ways companies have use ETQ Reliance as part of their audit process, but we wanted to highlight a few more. These are just a few examples of the benefits customers saw from using ETQ audit management software.

• FUJIFILM reduced the number of servers from seven to three, cut software products from five to one and lowered administration time from 1,500 hours per year to an estimated 750 hours. The company also reduced overall yearly maintenance agreements by approximately $60,000.
• Owen Mumford saw corrective and preventative actions (CAPA) across UK sites drop 45% from 2016 to 2021, which led to fewer nonconformance reports and fewer complaints, down 50% from 2016 to 2021.
• Trane decreased scrap and rework by 32% with just a three-person quality team deploying ETQ Reliance across 52 sites. The company reduced overall warranty costs by 70% and tens of millions of dollars.

ETQ’s Expertise in Audit Management

ETQ has been helping manufacturers optimize their quality processes for decades. As a global leader in integrated quality management solutions, ETQ serves life sciences, pharmaceutical, electronics, manufacturing, food and beverage, medical device companies and more.

The flexibility of ETQ Reliance allows organizations to start with audit management and expand to other quality processes over time or integrate audit management into an existing comprehensive QMS. The platform’s configurable nature means it adapts to your specific audit requirements rather than forcing you to change your processes to fit the software.

Organizations using ETQ Reliance benefit from continuous innovation as the platform evolves to meet changing regulatory requirements and industry best practices. And with our cloud-native deployment , ETQ Reliance fits your IT infrastructure and security requirements.

Learn more about how ETQ can transform your audit management processes at etq.com/audit-management.