Unless it is your first internal ISO QMS audit, you will need to review the previous audit reports, of both the external ISO certification audit and the internal audits. Going back two years is enough.
If the company has multiple departments, read thoroughly only the reports of the departments you plan to audit this year.
Look specifically for the sections that exhibit non-conformities, which constitute major or minor findings in the audit. So, make sure to select the relevant sections for each department and even prepare in advance some questions to ask.
The way I do it is by preparing the template of the audit report and deleting all the ISO standard sections that are not relevant to the department I am auditing. For example, when I audit Human Resources, I delete in advance all the ISO standard sections regarding product development and operation. Not that I necessarily stick to them, but I have a list questions to pull out fast, if I happen to lose my train of thought, or am just not sure what to ask next.
This check list is a good basis for other ISO standards, and it not only help you to get prepared fast,. You can measure the quality of your products or services against what your customers have to say about your offerings.
A reputed company performs frequent management reviews. During the internal audit, auditors must go through the management reviews to track how the company is progressing. The auditors should try to find out how the processes are affecting each other.
A positive impact on other work processes is good for the organization. Does your system meet the interests of your suppliers? You should always remember that the interest of the third parties, such as the suppliers, contribute to the overall performance of the organization. His blogs lead aspiring auditors to success.
These informative pieces are helpful for entrepreneurs and top management as well. Please Register or Login to post new comment. Access the best success, personal development, health, fitness, business, and financial advice Principais sistemas de energia alternativos. Take the Self Improvement Tour. Login Help. In other words, to judge effectiveness you look not only at the compliance of a process, but also at its results compared to its objectives.
However, please note that ISO requires an effective system, not necessarily an efficient one. Efficiency, the relationship between the result achieved and the resources used, is only addressed in the ISO Guidelines for Performance Improvement. A process may be defined, deployed, and effective, yet still need to be improved for better results and more business success. After determining the audit criteria requirements , objective evidence should be gathered in four different ways for more complete and effective audits:.
Based on your audit planning and checklist questions, ask employees about their jobs. Listen to what they tell you.
See if their explanations match the defined process. Use open-ended questions to elicit more complete responses. Aid your own understanding of the process by watching it be performed. See if the observed practices comply with requirements. You will discover the persons being interviewed are more relaxed when you let them demonstrate their jobs.
In addition, internal audits will be less disruptive since work is actually being completed. Ask the persons being interviewed what documents are used in their work. You may find documents and forms beyond those identified in your audit planning. See if the documents are adequately controlled and available for use. Refer to the documents to help you follow the work being shown. Verify the records described in the documents are being properly collected and controlled.
When you interview people and observe operations, you are determining how the process is currently being performed. However, you also want to verify the process has been compliant since the last audit. The best way to evaluate prior practices is to examine the records from past operations. The facts uncovered using these methods should be carefully recorded in your audit notes. Analyze this evidence to report the degree of conformity or nonconformity. Auditors cannot interview every person, observe every activity, look at every document, and evaluate every record.
You should strive for representative samples that allow you to make informed judgments. Since audits are limited due to sampling, nonconformities may continue to exist in the system beyond those identified and reported. You may have heard that ISO only specifically requires six procedures. Those required procedures by clause are:. ISO clause 4. Therefore, organizations should only develop the level of documentation they need based on the process complexity, personnel competence, and organization size.
This means some processes may be defined and not documented. Auditors accustomed to relying upon a written procedure to use as the audit criteria may feel lost without them. However, ISO has never required every task to be documented. There have always been cases where an organization could depend on the training, skills, and experience of the persons carrying out a defined process instead of having it written in a document.
With the requirement for fewer documented procedures, auditors will have to improve upon their interviewing techniques to understand and take notes on the defined process. Ask the manager of the area if any documents exist to guide the people in their assigned activities.
An audit should start with a meeting of the process owner to make sure that the audit plan is complete and ready. Then there are many avenues for the auditor to gather information during the audit: reviewing records, talking to employees, analyzing key process data or even observing the process in action.
The focus of this activity is to gather evidence that the process is functioning as planned in the QMS, and is effective in producing the required results. One of the most valuable things that an auditor can do for a process owner is not only to identify areas that do not have evidence that they are functioning properly, but also to point out areas of a process that may function better if changes are made.
A closing meeting with the process owner is a necessity to ensure that the flow of information is not delayed. The process owner will want to know if there are any areas of weakness that need to be addressed, but will also be interested in knowing if any areas exist that might be improved.
This should be followed with a written record as soon as possible to provide the information in a more permanent format to enable follow-up of the information. By identifying not only the non-conforming areas of the process, but also the positive areas and potential improvement areas, the process owner will get a better value from the Internal Audit, which will allow for process improvements.
As with many areas of the standard, follow-up is a critical step. If problems have been found and corrective actions taken, making sure that the problem is actually fixed is a key part of fixing it.
If improvement projects have been completed from opportunities identified in the audit, then seeing how much the process has improved is a great motivator for future improvements.
By using the Internal Audit process to focus on helping to improve the processes, and not just to maintain compliance, the company can see more value out of the audits.
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