I hope someone could help me with performing ISO 9001 compliance audit (after Management Review) prior to initial/certification audit (first time by Registrar).

For example - how is the "process approach" trailing done, especially when it comes to auditing the construction site(s).

Please help. I have some experiences auditing manufacturing but never in construction (building) industry.

Thank you

Lim Ah Meng.:)

…the same approach as in manufacturing :rolleyes: … you are only going to replace the “product” by “project”… which means, project quality plan would be necessary, ITP's, as well as the project quality objectives, document & record control procedures, control of nonconforming works (instead of products), corrective & preventive actions and so on… including customer satisfaction & complaints…

I hope someone could help me with performing ISO 9001 compliance audit (after Management Review) prior to initial/certification audit (first time by Registrar).

For example - how is the "process approach" trailing done, especially when it comes to auditing the construction site(s).

Please help. I have some experiences auditing manufacturing but never in construction (building) industry.

Thank you

Lim Ah Meng.:)

This is a great question and thanks for bringing it here to be answered.

For my reply, the answer is going to be based on the 'scope' and 'criteria' of the audit. In the case where you might be on a construction site, then there are multiple topics to choose from: Without that it's going to be difficult to advise and the stage of the construction is going to be a factor.

If you are pouring concrete, then you could follow the process, from arrival of the readimix on site (if that's applicable and it's not mixed on site) ensuring the slump test is done before discharge, the mix is correct type/grade, etc. etc. through pouring into the formwork, etc.

Often in construction, the internal auditor has to plan their audit to coincide with these stages, so if you can tell us we can give a more complete answer.

Thanks Andy,

The construction company is a main contractor - performing tendering, do management work, until the tender being awarded to them.
Having won the contract, the company selects sub-contractors to perfom on-site work.
Assuming, the scope is construction management and related ancillary work, how does one perform "process approach" auditing?
For work that can be repaired (touch up) most of the time, how do they record "control of non-conforming work"?

Hopefully my english is well understood.

Thank you.

Lim Ah Meng

...exactly the one I have before… main contractor - and if contract has won, subcontracts the works… (I don’t really know how they’re winning contract for that, but they are)…

…anyway, you’ll be involved more on contract review… both from your company-to-customer contract and company-to-supplier contracts… and of course, the monitoring of your customer satisfaction (in the form of client inspection and/or audit) and your suppliers' performances (in the form of your inspection and/or audit)…

…process approach auditing for this type of company, also deals with the ISO mandatory procedures (e.g. document control, record control, internal audit, etc…)… the thing that is going to be more specific is the project’s scope of work, that’s why you have to be knowledgeable of the project contract and its scope of work... any changes, additional works to be carried-out should be covered by your contract review…

…at the construction site, project plan alone is already a huge audit… the work progress as the time of the audit… competency of your project team… any corrective and/or preventive action taken or will be taken… control of non-conforming works… s curves… perp (if you are using)… drawings revision control including their distributions (if not covered by your document control generic procedure)… and so on…

…and speaking of “non-conforming work”... how to record a simple touch-up repair will be depend on your project management prerogative… let say, recording it will be insignificant since you are going to spend more on recording it than doing the actual repair, or accordingly, your project management does not considered it as non-conforming works since “retouching” is part of your scope of work… unless of course you have a histogram showing that this “retouching” is giving you a huge cost that minimizing it (if not totally eliminating) would be beneficial as cost cutting programs…

…I experienced before in one of our project that this “retouching” is not being given an attention and therefore not even considering it as nonconformity… until the project management realized that it cost them so much on this activity… and therefore, revised the project plan in such a way that the “retouching” activities would be in the last phase of the project… and started monitoring the cause of every retouching done…

…your English is very well understood, by the way…

Dear Joshua.

Thanks for the reply. Indeed it is helpful.

So please help me with the internal audit plan. As I understand from your reply, my (process) audit plan will have "something like" - 1) Management activities - including client focus, corrective/preventive actions, client complaints, internal audit 2) Tendering Process, 3) Contract Review 4) Site Audit - including control of non-conforming work and PQP 5) Human Resources/Training 6) Purchasing and Sub-contractor selection.

This may be what I can figure out from your reply. Any additional inputs perhaps - or did I understand it correctly?

What is normally audited during "Contract Review"?

Thanks again,

Lim.

…exactly as you understood for the internal audit plan… well, you can add or deduct later on as part of your continual improvement… don’t try to be perfectionist on your 1st (or 2nd, 3rd, etc) audit – you will not move with that thinking… that’s why ISO includes continual improvement, because they knew that it would be impossible for organization to achieve perfection… those things you have given are already an excellent starting points… and adopt continual improvement as required and/or as you see the necessity of improving it…

…contract review as per clause 7.2.2 review of requirements related to product should cover review before your company’s commitment to do it (e.g. submission of tenders, contracts acceptance, changes or revision, etc.) – you have to have records of this review and that they are properly reviewed, signed and agreed by both parties…

…the two most important things to consider for the review are; when your customer provides no documentation of their requirements, you’ll have to create one based on your SOP and you’ll have to confirm this before acceptance and of course before the commencement of the project… and, for every changes of project requirements (either from your customer or from your project management), you should have records of these amendments including their review & approval and that relevant personnel should be made aware of these changes (specifically those who are on site personnel that is going to implement the changes)…

Dear Joshua, thanks.

The more I ask, the more I want to know - I guess.

Where do the following activities fit in, in terms of ISO 9001 clause?
1. safety precaution required - is it related to 6.4 Infra-structure or is it to compliance? I noticed a lot of effort has to be put into documentation on this.

2. customer satisfaction is not gauged. How can i exercise this? It always end up with handover of completed project.

Thanks again,
Lim.

Safety precaution?... well, obviously in absence of OHSAS to your management system, you can include it in 6.3 - actually for infrastructure since 6.4 is for work environment… you have to bear in mind, that ISO requires compliance on its specified requirements… if you are meeting the minimum requirements, you’ll be OK… if you go beyond minimum, that’s fine too! ISO will not oppose on that… (e.g. if you feel that “safety precaution” can directly affect the quality of your works, the more you have to include it in your QMS… on the other hand, if it is not, but you want to include it, then include it – it is not against ISO)…

Customer satisfaction can be achieved in many approach… if you will try to search the forum, you’ll find a lot of strategies on how to “exercise” it… but the usual approach in construction would be creating an appropriate questionnaire for you to come out with your satisfaction level – specifically when the project has completed… but I’ve seen some main contractor companies that getting customer satisfaction level on completion of each construction phase… meaning, for every completion of major works (e.g. civil, mechanical or electrical), they will ask the customer of their satisfaction level on that specific works… and again, this is not against ISO… if this strategy will help your project management to improve more on each specific scope of work, then adopt this strategy… the point is, you have to comply with ISO requirements but at the same time you have to evaluate the effectiveness of this system in your organization and improve it accordingly…

Dear Joshua, thanks.

The more I ask, the more I want to know - I guess.

Where do the following activities fit in, in terms of ISO 9001 clause?
1. safety precaution required - is it related to 6.4 Infra-structure or is it to compliance? I noticed a lot of effort has to be put into documentation on this.

2. customer satisfaction is not gauged. How can i exercise this? It always end up with handover of completed project.

Thanks again,
Lim.

If you are in Malaysia, safety comes under the Factories and Machineries department. It is an independent issue not related to ISO evidenced by the need to abide by it even if you are not ISO certified.

Handing over of the project is not the end. There's maintenance period during which the customer may have a different view of you. It really ends with the closing of project accounts.

my (process) audit plan will have "something like" - 1) Management activities - including client focus, corrective/preventive actions, client complaints, internal audit 2) Tendering Process, 3) Contract Review 4) Site Audit - including control of non-conforming work and PQP 5) Human Resources/Training 6) Purchasing and Sub-contractor selection.



Limmeng, if I were planning such an audit, I wouldn't begin with 'corrective/preventive actions, complaints & internal audits!) I'd focus on the core business processes themselves. I would pick out a suitable number of projects (1-2 perhaps if they are large and document heavy as they usually are) and them attempt to follow them through 'from go to whoa' or beginning to closure - which is following the end to end process. And as I moved through, I'd be checking back against the relevant own process/procedure documentation (which should by now presumably cover the various relevant requirements of ISO 9001).

So I'd start by looking at the beginning of the project: Tendering and engagement, asking questions such as:
*What did the client want or specify?
*Where is that defined? (eg, tender & response)
*Is there reasonable evidence of suitable review? (this might be via the signoff of the tender response)
*Does our tender response appear suitable & cover the necessary requirements, is it clear, is it 'actionable' & was it suitably authorised for release (doc control).

I'd be looking for, overall, at the end of this phase, did we have a reasonably clear and well defined agreement with the client?

Next, move forward to Project setup/management. How is that done? What kinds of 'controlled conditions' do you use? If you subcontracted out much of the work, now's the time to look at which subcontractors were used, how chosen, how monitored and managed. AndI'd be making notes of which of your personnel were engaged on the various bits of the projects - because you can later follow the thread to 'HR' and see that all the competence requirements are met for those people.

As you move through, keep looking back to see if you're following your own processes and requirements, and if you can find the records that are supposed to exist.

In essence, you will touch on all the areas in the Standard - but you will do it by following the business process so that you're looking at things in context, not in isolation.

For example, with the CAPA, audit stuff, I'd be looking at that toward the end - asking, if something went wrong on this project, how did we respond to it? And how did that get fed back into the management loop?

Really, it doesn't matter what the company does, in a sense, but focus on the business processes, and follow those through from beginning to end.

Hi Lim,

Did you have a look in the section, http://elsmar.com/Forums/forumdisplay.php?f=24 which has threads relating to ISO 9001 - Quality Management Systems Standard ?

I am sure all your doubts will be solved if you go through those valuable posts. After going through, if any doubts are uncleared, pl feel free to post your question.

Best Luck :agree1:

I hope someone could help me with performing ISO 9001 compliance audit (after Management Review) prior to initial/certification audit (first time by Registrar).

For example - how is the "process approach" trailing done, especially when it comes to auditing the construction site(s).

Please help. I have some experiences auditing manufacturing but never in construction (building) industry.

Thank you

Lim Ah Meng.:)

Several good answers have already been given.....I will see if I can expand just a bit from the construction perspective, taken from the U.S. construction view of course.....

The concept is the same as any 9K audit, but with a HUGE twist.....you are not simply making some widget or another.....the mainmost number one job of everyone in the construction/construction materials/public safety arena is.....public safety! That is, not just how do you design/build the product (e.g., house, mall), but why is it done the way it is and have you met Code and other regulatory requirements? Will it fall down and make people dead? Or will it help keep them alive as it keeps them comfortable?

Now, the processes are similar, but with a few additional tweaks.....what process is used to control design to the applicable Codes, and what process is used to determine the requirements of the Codes? For example, the Florida Building Code is rigorous, and significantly more so when you get into wind zones 3 and 4, where the Miami-Dade requirements (now a part of the FBC) also apply.....on the West Coast, seismic issues take center stage, and in the Mid West extreme temp swings are a true concern.....thus the process of determining the applicable Code(s) and the process of design to meet the Code become - potentially - a critical process for safety of life.....

Qualification of suppliers for things like wood trusses and concrete become a issue.....the process of managing testing in particular for rebar and concrete pours ecomes a serious issue because of the time critical aspect.....

Qualification of sub-contractors is also an issue.....are they licensed construction professionals? If not, what safegards are in place to make sure the construction is right?

Customer request information is good, but remember that on of your customers, and perhaps the most critical single customer, is the Code Enforcement professional.....that person does not sign off on the construction, you can't sell it and people can't live in it.

Hope this helps.

Thanks for the replies, guys. They have been very helpful.

Lim