How to Audit Remote locations - Sales in other countries

Dear community members,

Can somebody help me with a problem we face in our company ?

We have multiple remote locations for Sales in countries that are far away from the head offices. For ISO/TS 16949 we have the obligation that we need to audit these remote locations before the yearly third party audit of the audit body. This will cost us a lot of money : first we have to do the internal audit ourselves and secondly the audit body has to fly to all these remote locations to conduct the audit.

I would like to know how other companies have solved this problem or if somebody as an idea how to audit these remote locations in the cheapest way (e.g. is it possible that we nominate an internal auditor in each of these remote locations and that we check these audit reports for the internal audits; can we rely on third party auditors to do the mandatory audit for the ceritifcation body ? Is it possible that we do this audit by telephone conference and by showing the results on the PC screen ?)

I appreciate all your ideas and suggestions !

Best regards,

Dirk

I have not faced that situation yet, but I have a suggestion which you can consider.

You could probably contact the ASQ chapters nearest to the locations you wish to include in your audit program. Every ASQ chapter will probably have information about qualified auditors in their area who could be a resource for you so there is no need to do expensive travel. You will need to consider distance-training for them in your particular QMS Audit system requirements (e.g. procedure, templates, confidentiality agreements etc.).

If you need support in Mexico let me know, I know some good auditors for TS in this region.

I hope you get a good solution for this project.

Alberto Rios

ADDIRK said:

Dear community members,


Is it possible that we do this audit by telephone conference and by showing the results on the PC screen ?)

I appreciate all your ideas and suggestions !

Best regards,

Dirk

Click to expand...

If this is just a routine audit I think it is acceptable to audit via phone teleconference, and have them show you the information needed, and also they can send you files or their procedures. For a certification or re-certification audit someone would need to visit the sites unless your registrar certification auditor agrees otherwise.