We have recently been registered to ISO/TS 16949 (hooray:D !). This year we are thinking about outsourcing our internal audits. If we decide to go this route, it has been the general consensus that in order to manage the audits in the most effective manner I should take an ISO/TS 16949 Lead Auditor Course. So, with that being said, I have a few questions I was hoping to get some input on...
1. Has anyone else who is ISO/TS 16949 registered tried to outsource their audits? Any luck?
2. Is the Lead Auditor course necessary or would just the internal auditor course suffice? (I have been trained in ISO/TS 16949 as well as auditing to the standard)
3. Any recommendations on training?

Any input is greatly appreciated. :bigwave:

Thanks,
BJ

An Internal Auditor Course will suffice, but you may wish to have your Internal Audit Process Owner take a Lead Auditor Course. I have heard of many organizations outsourcing their internal audits. There are many people who have auditing certifications that require a certain number of audits to maintain. These folks are glad to do the audits for you at little or no cost, just to get credit for doing the audit. You must make sure they have met your internal auditor training requirements, too. I have done these for an organization, who wants the internal auditor to have a great deal of independence, especially when auditing the Internal Audit Process and processes owned by Top Management.

We have recently been registered to ISO/TS 16949 (hooray:D !). This year we are thinking about outsourcing our internal audits. If we decide to go this route, it has been the general consensus that in order to manage the audits in the most effective manner I should take an ISO/TS 16949 Lead Auditor Course. So, with that being said, I have a few questions I was hoping to get some input on...
1. Has anyone else who is ISO/TS 16949 registered tried to outsource their audits? Any luck?
2. Is the Lead Auditor course necessary or would just the internal auditor course suffice? (I have been trained in ISO/TS 16949 as well as auditing to the standard)
3. Any recommendations on training?

Any input is greatly appreciated. :bigwave:

Thanks,
BJ


If you intend to outsource your internal audits, there may not be a need for you to take training. You will learn a lot by working with the outside auditor on a regular basis.

Many companies have taken this direction. If the auditor you hre is good, the caliber and number of findings may be enough that you will more than recover the fees paid to the auditor.

There are a number of us on this forum who have TS credentials and can provide this service, (including myself). We have recently launched a revision to our internal auditing service, and we have renamed it "Improvement Audits" rather than limit the focus to internal audits. (Jim Wynne can have fun with my new "buzzword.")

I am the process owner of the internal audits and am also a trained internal auditor. In speaking with our registrar, they do not foresee any problems with us outsourcing our internal audits as long as we maintain control of the process. This is why I wasn't sure if I would need lead auditor training. I would have to maintain the audit schedule and the auditor would have to use our forms and go by our procedure (which could always be revised if a more efficient way was found). If there is no need for me to take a lead auditor course at this time I would prefer not to because it's so far from home and is a week long. Please send me an email so that we may discuss your services.