One ofmy clients is a sole proprietor company where the owner is the only qualified person.
When the internal auditing has to be conducted as per the requirements of ISO9002, can he himself perform thesame or can he hire external help?

An external auditor is the way to go.....you can consider a trade off with another real small company....do each others..or hire an auditor. may I suggest calling the local ASQ to see if there is an auditor pool of trainees looking for audits to get or maintain 'registered status'..2 can do it, and one can get those Lead Auditor points...so difficult to earn. IRCA will allow these as legal audits...and do not require as many witnessed. Or they can always pay for the service.

If the owner is directly responsible for the area being audited, i.e. he/she is the supervising authority or performs the function himself/herslef, he may not be the auditor.

The standard reads ".... shall be carried out by personnel independent of those having direct responsibility for the activity being audited".

In short, the auditor may not be directly responsibly for the area or task being audited.

I would recommend an outside auditor conduct the internal audits or that the owner train others in his/her organization to be internal auditors.

Go with barb on this one. Internal audits MUST be conducted by parties independent of the area being assessed. Some local ASQ chapters do maintain assesssor "pools" to assist companies in this problem.

Regards,
Don

[This message has been edited by Don Winton (edited 10-24-98).]

Me! Me! Me! I'm ready to fly over and do your audits! http://www.qs9000.com/ubb/wink.gif

You are in India?

Marc...we really do need to talk......got to get you in touch with my UK friend with the lead auditor courses....he has some to do in India, as well as many other neat places. when will you be in upstate NY again? or Boston?