Hi everybody, I am bramanta from Indonesia. I have a problem with internal audit. Top level management asked me how to improve competency of our internal auditor, or maybe the audit program, so the audit can make impact in improving our quality performance. Our top level management thinks that most of our internal audit finding are only trivial things and don,t have significant impact in improving quality performance. Need suggestion from you all.

Hi everybody, I am bramanta from Indonesia. I have a problem with internal audit. Top level management asked me how to improve competency of our internal auditor, or maybe the audit program, so the audit can make impact in improving our quality performance. Our top level management thinks that most of our internal audit finding are only trivial things and don,t have significant impact in improving quality performance. Need suggestion from you all.

Unfortunately what your management thinks is found to be true with many internal audits. The simplest way out for you would be to get an "expert" external auditor to conduct an additional audit for you. Your internal auditors can accompany him along and observe what questions he asks, how he links various findings, what does he mark as a non-conformance, how does he state a non-conformance, etc. If your management agrees, this exercise can be done after a revision training session is held for your internal auditors.

Hi everybody, I am bramanta from Indonesia. I have a problem with internal audit. Top level management asked me how to improve competency of our internal auditor, or maybe the audit program, so the audit can make impact in improving our quality performance. Our top level management thinks that most of our internal audit finding are only trivial things and don,t have significant impact in improving quality performance. Need suggestion from you all.

That is - unfortunately - true of a lot of internal audits, and external. What you need is to make sure that the management and the internal auditors have the same goals for the audit. Of course an audit is a matter of ensuring compliance to the regulations and standards, but I believe that should also be a matter of highlighting what is working well in a company and were improvements - systemwise, financially, environmentally etc. - can be made.

Hi everybody, I am bramanta from Indonesia. I have a problem with internal audit. Top level management asked me how to improve competency of our internal auditor, or maybe the audit program, so the audit can make impact in improving our quality performance. Our top level management thinks that most of our internal audit finding are only trivial things and don't have significant impact in improving quality performance. Need suggestion from you all.

As Gert point out, a basic 3rd party audit and to a great extend, an internal audit is to ensure that you are in compliance with the requirements of the standard and applicable regulations and nothing more. An experience auditor may be able to subtly point you to some improvement routes but they are not obliged to do so. As for internal auditors, do you have people with such experience? Most auditors for small companies are given only a few days of training and conduct audit only once a year - what can you expect?

I think your management have unrealistic expectations. If their interest is in 'significant quality improvements, the right thing to do is to conduct an operations/manufacturing or process audit. Only people with sufficient and relevant experience in your business are able to do a such a job. If you ask me, it's their job and if you tell me they don't have enough experience, then they shouldn't be there.

I think much of this is about attitude.

The attitude of top management, in committing to allow enough time to properly conduct internal audits rather than the 'tick box' approach that satisfies the basic requirement.

The attitude of the auditor(s), in trying to look for conformance and improvement rather than nonconformance so they can prove they did a 'good job'.

The attitude of process owners to want to improve and take a proactive part in the quality management process rather than paying lip service to it and then bleating that the quality system does not help them and takes up their resources.

Have you "audited the audit"?

It also sounds like your auditing for the wrong information. If your conducting your audit to look for non-conformance then it is wrong! This is the reason to do the audit..

8.2.2 Internal audit
The organization shall conduct internal audits at planned intervals to determine whether the quality management system

a) conforms to the planned arrangements (see 7.1), to the requirements of this International Standard and to the quality management system requirements established by the organization, and

b) is effectively implemented and maintained.

Nowhere does it mention "look for nonconformance"

If your boss wants value, as all should, then provide that value by identifying "preventive actions" otherwise known as "opportunities for improvement". By doing so the process turns from being a reactive/negative/lose-lose to a positive/pro-active/win-win for your organization.

Then listen to the other dribble your going to get that will essentially say the same thing but with more words.

If you believe the issue is with your internal auditors, then as suggested I would seek additional training for your staff, shadowing an outside consultant would be a good way of accomplishing this while also getting an outside perspective on your systems/processes.

It sounds to me, however, that from Top Management's perspective, the problem is located in your internal audit process. Do they have specific quality goals defined, what quality performance improvements are they looking for, how is this measured...look at your improvement metrics and identify the history...has your company shown improvement in these areas if not, why?

It sounds like your executive management wants more focus on the big picture. Supply them with overall performance metrics, analysis, history, and work with them to define what goals they want to meet...once this is accomplished you can better direct your auditors and augment your internal audit program accordingly.

Best of luck to you and your staff. :D

We approach the internal audits and process performance management very separtely. One is more for compliance and minor improvement and the other is for large scale process improvement. Granted your processes will get some benefit from internal audits but not as much as you would from a process redesign methodology like a basic rummler brache (http://www.rummlerbrache.com/) approach. I don't think following an external auditor around is neccessarily going to help the auditor become proficient in process improvement. I will say that using the process approach is much more effective than the clause approach to auditing to really help discover strengths and disconnects in a process. So I suggest giving a more focused knowledge and skill toward process improvement than just ISO. Six Sigma and Lean are the current fads, oops um, currenlty very popular improvement methodologies. :tg:

As Gert point out, a basic 3rd party audit and to a great extend, an internal audit is to ensure that you are in compliance with the requirements of the standard and applicable regulations and nothing more. An experience auditor may be able to subtly point you to some improvement routes but they are not obliged to do so. As for internal auditors, do you have people with such experience? Most auditors for small companies are given only a few days of training and conduct audit only once a year - what can you expect?

I think your management have unrealistic expectations. If their interest is in 'significant quality improvements, the right thing to do is to conduct an operations/manufacturing or process audit. Only people with sufficient and relevant experience in your business are able to do a such a job. If you ask me, it's their job and if you tell me they don't have enough experience, then they shouldn't be there.


I disagree. An internal audit program is funded to help a company improve. Only looking for compliance misses half or more of the potential value of the audit. A mature system would rarely get any benefit from audits if it is only compliance.

I teach an internal auditor class to help internal auditors reach that next level. I won't post the whole curriculum (it is a paid class), but I have posted the intro. You can review it with your management to see if you could adjust your internal audit program toward this improved paradigm.

http://elsmar.com/Forums/showthread.php?t=6756

Hi everybody, I am bramanta from Indonesia. I have a problem with internal audit. Top level management asked me how to improve competency of our internal auditor, or maybe the audit program, so the audit can make impact in improving our quality performance. Our top level management thinks that most of our internal audit finding are only trivial things and don,t have significant impact in improving quality performance. Need suggestion from you all.

With my experince in internal auditing I can say the reason behind this kind of problem is that internal auditors are maybe familiar with the activities being performed but does not have the expertise required for the organization. department/ division. etc.
So, I beleive that particular activity study is required by the internal auditor.

So many replies, thank you. Now I am thinking of improving our audit process by giving more stress in some processes such as establishing and evaluating objective, corrective and preventive action and performance data analysis, audit process itself etc. I probably will make rearrangement about who will carry out or accompany manufacturing process audit. It's interesting, I'll talk to the management. More idea about improving auditor skill? or best method of value adding audit?

Sometimes, insignificant findings is what the auditors find. As an example, during our first surveillance for the 14001 system, I could tell that our auditor was non-believing of our lack of nonconformances found during our internal audits. IA's did suggest several places where it appeared that we could make improvements, but found only one actual nonconformance. It is my belief that she went out of her way to "prove us wrong" or at the very least, lax in our auditing. after three days, she came back to me and informed me that our IA's had done a great job and she could not find anything that they had missed.

Of course, it's a snap shot, or as I say a "crap shoot", today, someone might go out there and find a doozy. Sometimes, a system is what it is, and sometimes that is a functioning, balanced system. Sometimes, it's a zoo and the animals are running it.:notme: