Having recently moved to a plant with a flow line manufacture of fabricated parts, I wish to reduce the number of audits required annually by auditing the process lines and not the elements of ISO900x. Has anyone attacked this problem? What obstacles can I expect?

Your internal audits do not have to address compliance. Start off taking a look at http://Elsmar.com/ubb/Forum13/HTML/000021.html and http://Elsmar.com/ubb/Forum13/HTML/000011.html QS9000 is pushing this, however.

I suggest you read thru some of the threads in the internal auditing forum. Many are old so you may have to ask for the forum to display "SHOW ALL TOPICS" (see upper right of the forum topic listing page) rather than "SHOW TOPICS FROM THE LAST 75 DAYS" or whatever you have checked currently. http://Elsmar.com/ubb/Forum13/HTML/000030.html also has some good info.

set up a cross reference of process lines to the standard.....obviously 4.9, 4.10, 4.16, 4.8, 4.12, 4.11, 4.18, 4.5, 4.13, 4.15 and maybe even 4.3, 4.7, 4.20, 4.6. report the findings using a summary sheet .... then the lead auditor will do a desk audit of the sheet to accomplish the majority of the elements addressed, and pick up any activities that reach into other areea.