What Does It Really Take to Stand Up an LPA Program?

Layered process audits (LPAs) are one of the most cost-effective tools manufacturers have to prevent process variation and ensure standardization on a daily basis.

They’re not as flashy as expensive automation and IoT systems, but they answer the question at the heart of every quality system: are operators following the standard every time?

When done right, LPAs deliver significant results and KPI improvements that speak to every plant leader’s larger goals around operational excellence, such as:

Reduction in defects, complaints, and warranty issues
Lower quality costs and improved profitability
Increased capacity utilization and yield
Improved compliance and external audit performance
Higher customer satisfaction and quality awards

It’s a simple concept with transformative potential, but actually standing up an LPA program requires cross-functional teamwork, execution discipline, and above all, strong leadership.

In this guide, we detail the most important elements around people, process, and timing, and reveal the one factor that no LPA program can succeed without.

Download your free Ultimate Guide to Layered Process Audits for an in-depth guide to the implementation process

Leadership Buy-In and Support

Leadership is a non-negotiable element in any successful LPA program. The reason is that LPAs require time and effort, particularly at the frontline level. People are resistant to change and often hesitate taking on new responsibilities. It’s management’s role to lead through change, with the understanding that navigating the rough spots is part of the process.

There are several key areas where leadership must get involved:

Resourcing the program: Leaders are the ones who have the power to allocate time, resources, and personnel to the program.
Communicating the why: People will only check the box if they don’t understand the why behind doing LPAs and why their role is so important in them. Beyond just training, management must communicate LPA wins and tie them to real financial impact to help the team see the value of LPAs.
Audit participation: Participation shows the frontline that LPAs aren’t just another top-down initiative that management is forcing on them, but something leaders believe in enough to take an active role in themselves. Our internal research shows that when leaders perform their audits, the frontline closes out more of their audits on time—a key measure of LPA maturity.
Holding teams accountable: When people don’t complete their audits on time, leaders must be there to enforce accountability and help resolve bottlenecks.
Establishing a culture of openness: It’s leadership’s job to make sure people feel safe to report issues. Identifying plant floor issues should be treated as a positive that drives continuous improvement, avoiding blame so that people are less likely to hide problems.

The bottom line: leadership’s visible commitment and involvement in the program sets the tone for the entire organization, and without it, your LPA program will always underperform.

Cross-Functional Team Participation

Once you have leadership buy-in secured, your next step is to build your LPA team. This should include three to six individuals, including:

LPA program champion: The program champion must be someone whom leadership respects, and who can hold leaders accountable for their role in the LPA program.
Operations: Operations should own LPAs, not the quality department, since they are the ones directly involved with plant floor processes.
Representatives from different functional areas: Participation from areas outside operations and quality, such as HR, finance, and administration, supports cross-functional engagement and ownership of the LPA program.
Frontline employees: The frontline is the engine of any LPA program, and getting their input helps improve team buy-in and keep LPAs grounded in the day-to-day challenges on the plant floor.

Initial Planning and Preparation

After your team is in place, you’ll need to do some initial planning and preparation to make sure your program starts strong. The key steps here are:

Gap analysis: First, you’ll want to perform a gap analysis of your existing plant floor audit and verification processes to determine what’s missing.
Choose your pilot area: Determine whether you want to start with an area that already runs well, or an area needing improvement to demonstrate early wins and build momentum.
Identify areas of risk: Here is where you identify what’s driving risk and variability in your processes. Places to start include process failure mode and effects analysis (PFMEA), customer complaints, and scrap reports.

Writing LPA Checklist Questions

Writing LPA questions for your audit checklists is arguably one of the trickiest parts of launching an LPA program, but it gets easier with practice. Remember that questions should be:

High value: Checklist questions should tie directly back to risks identified in the previous step, not checking paperwork or whether work instructions are posted.
Clear: Questions should be written in yes/no format (with yes being passed) and should be easy to answer even if the auditor isn’t an expert in the process.
Concise: Questions should be easy to answer in about a minute. When audits run too long, the frontline tunes out, eroding the very foundation of your LPA program.
Targeted: Don’t use generic checklists across multiple areas. Questions should be specific to the process to ensure they are high value, giving you better insights while also helping communicate that LPAs aren’t just more busywork.

Defining and Documenting Your LPA Process

Here’s where you get into the details on who will conduct audits where and when.

Every level of the organization from executives to the frontline should be involved in conducting audits, and as a best practice, you should involve multiple departments (operations, maintenance, shipping, etc). This further reinforces the value of LPAs by making LPAs part of everyone’s job.

As for how many LPAs you should be doing, audit frequency is determined by layer, with frontline employees conducting audits more frequently compared with upper management.

Layer	Role	Audit frequency
1	Team leads and supervisors	Daily
2	Engineers and cross-functional team members	Weekly
3	Plant managers	Monthly

Some organizations add a fourth layer for executives or include them in Layer 3, scheduling audits quarterly or even annually based on when they are visiting the plant.

Finally, management reviews must be built into your LPA process to close the loop on LPA findings. These meetings should be held monthly as a general best practice, and even more frequently during initial implementation phases.

Documenting this entire process is necessary for successfully rolling it out to different areas of the plant. Your process should describe how LPAs connect with other systems such as PFMEAs, control plans, and corrective actions.

Training and Communication

Training auditors is vital to making sure your team understands not just how to conduct audits, but the why behind them. The reason this is so important: if auditors don’t see the value behind them, eventually you’re likely to find them rushing through their audits (and ignoring risks in the process).

Included in your LPA training and education should be a cultural focus on problem-solving and openness. The role of the auditor isn’t to blame operators; it’s to uncover and correct process non-conformances, provide ideas and coaching, and ask for operator feedback.

As part of this, management needs to take an active role in communicating about LPAs, including:

How different departments or areas are performing with regards to LPA completion
Sharing the tangible results of LPAs and their impact so that people can see LPAs make a difference and can even make their jobs easier by preventing problems
Recognizing teams and individuals for a job well done

Piloting the Process

Once you’ve trained your team, it’s time to start rolling out your first LPAs. Many plants choose to start small with a pilot before deploying them to the entire plant.

Think one department, one production line, even just one process. Starting at a granular level helps you iron out the bumps earlier for a smoother rollout to the rest of the plant.

Those people that participated in the pilot program can be part of training the next team. This allows team members to learn from their peers, as opposed to a top-down approach.

Running Your LPA Program

An LPA program isn’t something you can stand up and then walk away from. Rather, it requires ongoing monitoring, measurement, and engagement from leadership to achieve their full value.

Management reviews are a critical part of this process, and should look specifically at:

Whether corrective actions are effective at preventing recurrence, or whether teams need more support around problem-solving tools like 8D, 5Y and FMEA.
LPA system health metrics such as on-time audit completion rates and on-time findings closure
Analyzing LPA findings and failure trends, especially for frequent or severe issues

Timing Considerations

The planning and rollout process can take anywhere from a few weeks to a few months, depending on whether you’re starting with a digital platform or paper checklists.

Many companies start with paper LPAs, but run into challenges around scheduling and completing audits, entering findings and updating checklists—all critical elements of a successful LPA program. This often drives a transition to digital audits as companies look to simplify administration so they can see results faster. Other companies start with digital to jumpstart their LPA program and standardize their approach from day one, so they can avoid getting bogged down in paperwork.

Time to implementation also depends on how quickly you can engage your team. Some companies accelerate the process by holding a kaizen event over the course of a few days, addressing areas like:

Gap analysis and planning
Introducing LPAs to the team
Writing LPA questions with input from operators
Training auditors on the how and why behind LPAs

How Long Until You See Results?

LPAs aren’t what anybody would call a quick fix, but that doesn’t mean that plants don’t start seeing results early. Even many early-stage programs are able to conduct thousands of audits a year using a digital LPA platform, often identifying hundreds or even thousands of non-conformances before they become quality escapes.

There’s no question that launching a successful LPA program is a substantial effort requiring cross-functional participation. Even so, those that make the investment and have engaged leaders behind the initiative stand to make massive gains.

Those gains go far deeper than many expect, impacting not just productivity and quality KPIs but also organizational culture on a deeper level.

As one quality leader put it “People see leaders out there doing audits daily, and when someone points out an issue, management makes sure it’s fixed. Seeing their feedback matters and that we’re solving problems they bring up makes all the difference.”