Am I ready to call auditor?

[John Martinez]

In Reply to Parent Post by JaneB

I completely agree that any CAs/PAs whatever should have been reviewed and appropriately actioned (whether before a certification audit or not). If I was an auditor, and found CAs raised some time ago that had not been addressed, or if closed, hadn't been reviewed (again, within a reasonable timeframe!) I would be asking questions about the effectiveness of corrective action. Of course.

But the very last thing that would help a CA to be effective would be any kind of rush to close it off, including a misbelief that the external auditor would expect that to be done! Indeed, I've encouraged clients not to close off CAs (or to re-open them) when they've been closed off too early, regardless of a scheduled certification audit. And auditors are happy (in my experience) when they see evidence of a functioning system.


You're welcome John, happy to oblige.

We totally agree. I used the wrrroooo....er........"mis-spoke."

[JaneB]

In Reply to Parent Post by John Martinez

I'd suggest you have your CB in for the "Stage One" audit or a readiness review. Your CB auditor will be able to tell the organization if the client is ready for the Initial Audit or it will need to be postponed.

Yes, exactly. As you of course will know, it's one of the reasons for doing the external audit in 2 stages, and by having a Stage 1 Review, the client organisation gets to find out if they're ready, and neither client nor auditing body get a nasty shock by 10 am on Day 1 of the external audit when it becomes crystal clear that the system just is not ready for the audit (used to happen once upon a time!) Works well all around, I think. And the bad old days when some penny-pinching (& not very good) CBs would go for a supposed 'desktop audit of the documentation only' could produce some very useless and misleading results.

[John Martinez]

In Reply to Parent Post by JaneB

Yes, exactly. As you of course will know, it's one of the reasons for doing the external audit in 2 stages, and by having a Stage 1 Review, the client organisation gets to find out if they're ready, and neither client nor auditing body get a nasty shock by 10 am on Day 1 of the external audit when it becomes crystal clear that the system just is not ready for the audit (used to happen once upon a time!) Works well all around, I think. And the bad old days when some penny-pinching (& not very good) CBs would go for a supposed 'desktop audit of the documentation only' could produce some very useless and misleading results.

From the days of a checklist to determine if the client was ready, the week before the auidt (after nagging the client to get it to me), I received the checklist with a note "some of the answers are foward looking"... WHAT? 9 Major NC's in the first 3 hours of auditing for the Initial Audit.

Since we have now adopted the on site Stage 1 approach, approximately 60% of the time, the client is NOT at all ready for Stage 2.

[Stijloor]

In Reply to Parent Post by John Martinez

From the days of a checklist to determine if the client was ready, the week before the auidt (after nagging the client to get it to me), I received the checklist with a note "some of the answers are foward looking"... WHAT? 9 Major NC's in the first 3 hours of auditing for the Initial Audit.

Since we have now adopted the on site Stage 1 approach, approximately 60% of the time, the client is NOT at all ready for Stage 2.

They should have engaged the services of a competent consultant.

Stijloor.

[John Martinez]

In Reply to Parent Post by Stijloor

They should have engaged the services of a competent consultant.

Stijloor.

I agree. That said, the reason they wanted the checklist instead of the IV in the first place was was costs.

[JaneB]

In Reply to Parent Post by John Martinez

the week before the auidt (after nagging the client to get it to me), I received the checklist with a note "some of the answers are foward looking"... WHAT?

The translation being "this is where we kinda very much hope that we'll be by next week"
Yeah, right.

As Jan said, they should have used a competent consultant, and avoided the whole schemozzle.