Greetings everyone.

During the surveillance audit of one company I'm assisting, Mr. A, who is the plant manager and Internal Audit Officer presented their internal audit program to the auditor. A portion of the program showed the following sample info:

Area/Requirement Auditee Auditor
Management Responsibility Mr. A Mr. B
Corrective Action Mr. B Ms. C
Purchasing Mr. A Ms. C

Audit Team Leader: Mr. A

The auditor gave them a minor non-conformance saying that their audit procedure violated the requirement that the auditor should be independent and have no direct responsibility on the item being audited. The auditor pointed out that Mr. A should not have been an auditee because he was also the Audit Team Leader and he may influence Mr. B's and Ms. C's findings.

In my opinion, this only warrants an observation because the company practice did not violate the IQA requirements. Although Mr. A was the IQA Team Leader, he did not audit his own work. He was the auditee on the areas under his responsibility.

I would appreciate knowing your views on the matter.

Thanks,
Naomi

Hello Naomi,
I'm attempting to follow your post. You are saying Mr. A is the plant manager and the audit team leader. Mr. A is also the auditee for Management Responsibility and Purchasing? If that is the case I would have issued a major non-conformance in my opinion. Eventhough Mr. A didn't audit himself or his work directly he still may unethically have authorization to over rule findings and observations that the internal auditor may have documented because he is the Audit Team Leader who really should be responsible for making the final call on any close issues during an audit. Obviously if during this surveillance audit, numerous major issues have been documented other than this issue, a minor observation may be appropriate ("slay dragons and not flys" as one instructor always said) but if not, then a major is appropriate. That is just one auditor's opinion.

One thing I remember most vividly from auditor training courses is never assume anything and you never given all of the details in a question.

We don't know things like:


# of personnel available to audit
Did Mr. A actually audit himself or did someone else audit him?
Was Mr. A aware of the possibility of a conflict and take steps to minimize the "bias"?


The # of available people may make it increasingly difficult to find people to audit without a bias. The smaller the company, the higher the odds are there will be some bias - even if it's not professional, there is personal bias for close-knit organizations.

If Mr. A audited himself, then, yes, I too would issue a finding. I'm imagining a conversation that goes something like...

Mr. A: Do you have a procedure for controlling your documents?
Mr. A: Yes.
Mr. A: Does it detail how documents are reviewed to ensure their adequacy?
Mr. A: Yes.

Needless to say, a rather silly and non-value added audit!

However, if Mr. A realized that as the Lead Auditor for the audit and an actual Auditee for a portion of it, I make a note on the Audit Report that I did not conduct the audit myself, nor influence the planning/preparing of it. When it comes time to discuss findings, the auditors tell me what they are before they leave...in other words, before I put my Lead Auditor hat back on, thus minimizing the possibility of a perceived conflict and this process is noted in the Audit Report, as well. At the Closing Meeting, any findings issued to me are discussed as if they were issued to someone else.

But we do, as a minimum, acknowledge the possibility for a perceived bias/conflict and take steps to minimize it as much as possible. Our External Auditors are rather pleased, actually, with how we have avoided having this become an issue.

Dan and Roxanne. Thank you for broadening my view on the matter.
The company is not a big one, with about 30 employees. However, only a handful, i.e., the members of the management team have the time and the training to conduct internal audits: the plant manager, production manager, sales manager, cashier, and quality control officer. So far, we have not had any problems with the plant manager/lead auditor trying to overrule any findings made on his "turf".
I can see that we failed to show to the auditor that we took the effort to minimize the biases/conflict that may arise from the arrangement. We may adopt the practice of the Team Leader writing notation on the Audit Report acknowledging the possibility of biases and the steps taken to minimize it.
The company's corrective action was to name an alternate audit team leader. The plant manager revised the audit schedules for the year and issued a memo stating that during the audit sked where he is an auditee, the alternate will act as Team Leader.

Dan and Roxanne. Thank you for broadening my view on the matter.
The company is not a big one, with about 30 employees. However, only a handful, i.e., the members of the management team have the time and the training to conduct internal audits: the plant manager, production manager, sales manager, cashier, and quality control officer. So far, we have not had any problems with the plant manager/lead auditor trying to overrule any findings made on his "turf".
I can see that we failed to show to the auditor that we took the effort to minimize the biases/conflict that may arise from the arrangement. We may adopt the practice of the Team Leader writing notation on the Audit Report acknowledging the possibility of biases and the steps taken to minimize it.
The company's corrective action was to name an alternate audit team leader. The plant manager revised the audit schedules for the year and issued a memo stating that during the audit sked where he is an auditee, the alternate will act as Team Leader.

I have some comments and questions on your situation which in fact have a general application.
Why do you need 2 auditors? There is no requirement for more than one auditor as the single auditor can act as team leader. As you are a small company the need for a team seems an exageration.

However, only a handful, i.e., the members of the management team have the time and the training to conduct internal audits
The advantages of training non managment staff can have advantages far above those of the inital qualification for auditor status.

Use of non managerial staff can only help the QMS and the auditing process.
This can help to promote the understanding of the QMS amongst the staff by giving them direct contact with people who have auditors knowledge.
It gives the staff a buy in to the system and the QMS becomes not only a management thing.

The time available is a management decsion which is easily changed.

This to me is a more fundamental issue than if A or B is auditing his own job, in fact if we are looking at a process approach it is almost impossible to find someone ion the organisation that is not involved with the complete process unless they are defined in a very narrow manner.

Hello Howard.

The creation of the team was to ensure that the auditors don't audit their own work. Selecting the management staff to do internal audits seemed to be the easiest way to get the job done. The non-managerial staff such as the process operators monitor and record the process parameters in an hourly basis and thus cannot leave their work. The office staff are already multi-tasking.

Since even the management staff are multi-tasking, your recommendation of having only one internal auditor is very helpful and one which we have not considered. In such a case, how can we get round the requirement of auditor independece?

The recent thread on outsourcing internal audits is also one of the options that we are considering.

Thank you for the input. Best regards. :bigwave:

The creation of the team was to ensure that the auditors don't audit their own work. Selecting the management staff to do internal audits seemed to be the easiest way to get the job done. The non-managerial staff such as the process operators monitor and record the process parameters in an hourly basis and thus cannot leave their work. The office staff are already multi-tasking.

This is common in many organizations. I would love it if the QC Technicians could be auditors, but as they are on rotating shifts it is difficult to plan around their schedule, let alone the auditees. :) Staff and management are all busy, multi-tasking and wearing many hats...so we share the workload when it comes to audits. We have also incorporated auditing as part of the training program for supervisor trainees, process engineers-in-training, facilitator trainees, etc. The experience gives them great exposure to the processes outside of their own little bubble.

Since even the management staff are multi-tasking, your recommendation of having only one internal auditor is very helpful and one which we have not considered. In such a case, how can we get round the requirement of auditor independece?

Easy. Who says the one auditor has to audit their area? I am the Lead Auditor on our Internal System Audit, but I certainly do not audit my own work.

The solution is as simple as having one auditor come in to audit Manager A's area. This could mean a smaller, additional audit or just make it part of the system audit. Your call. We all agree that Manager A can not audit his/her own work and that someone else needs to. Having some one from outside come into audit a small area does not seem that practical to me. :2cents:

I think that maybe this is a conceptual problem, let me try to elaborate what I said :
To solve the problem of not auditing your own work then you could have a number of audits on very specific topics. You might increase the number of audits but you reduce them in time.
The alternative of outsourcing if used can be very effective but not just to cover the specific problem areas.
As you are a very small company then the involvement of every one in all actions of the company is a problem as the intimate nature causes the possibility of "blind spots" in the auditor in situations that he/she is aware of any way.
To bring someone in say twice a year to give a fresh peceptive can enable you to make a jump forward.
We have had a discussion as to whether 3rd party auditors can give recomendations http://elsmar.com/Forums/showthread.php?t=8842 in this case part of the outsourced audit would be exactly this "added value"
One other way of managing these audits is do work together with other companies, members of the same trade organisation, board of commerce etc and swop auditors. This has the advantage of a fresh look, it does not cost and every one can benefit from exposure to different systems, benchmarking at the same time as performing an audit.

As I have seen there are a number of people in the Phillipines asking about audits, maybe you could help each other in this manner.

Easy. Who says the one auditor has to audit their area? I am the Lead Auditor on our Internal System Audit, but I certainly do not audit my own work.

The solution is as simple as having one auditor come in to audit Manager A's area. This could mean a smaller, additional audit or just make it part of the system audit. Your call. We all agree that Manager A can not audit his/her own work and that someone else needs to. Having some one from outside come into audit a small area does not seem that practical to me. :2cents:

Too true. :)

Until this time, I had been comfortable with the current set-up and thus have failed to look for ways to improve the system. I could tell myself I should have used common sense. Most of my friends agree though that what we call as "common sense" is often not that common.

Best regards.

As I have seen there are a number of people in the Phillipines asking about audits, maybe you could help each other in this manner.

True too. :)

I'm glad I found the Cove. :thanx: