Is a full Internal Audit cycle every year required?

O

oruiz2

I'm with a small aerospace machine shop with AS9100 certification. During our surveillance audit a few months ago I was surprised when the auditor commented that it's not necessary to audit to the whole standard within the year depending on your audit plan. :)

She mentioned that we can focus on areas that we deem to be most important.

I just want to verify if this is correct and how this would be addressed or formalized in a plan. I have areas such as inspection, production and calibration that I would prefer to focus on improving, rather than document control or areas I consider us to be strong on, such as corrective actions or control of records, resource management.

If this is possible it would be immensely helpful. I appreciate any comments.:thanks:
 
T

Tara Monson

Re: Is full audit cycle every year required?

As far as I understood, the standard does not require an annual internal audit of the entire system. The same goes for ISO 9001. Our sister company performs theirs on a 3 year cycle, dependent on performance.

As long as you can provide evidence that your system is compliant enough to pass a 3 year cycle. If you can't, then auditing more often will be needed.

The length of cycle really depends on the sustainability of your QMS.
 

dsanabria

Quite Involved in Discussions
I'm with a small aerospace machine shop with AS9100 certification. During our surveillance audit a few months ago I was surprised when the auditor commented that it's not necessary to audit to the whole standard within the year depending on your audit plan. :)

She mentioned that we can focus on areas that we deem to be most important.

I just want to verify if this is correct and how this would be addressed or formalized in a plan. I have areas such as inspection, production and calibration that I would prefer to focus on improving, rather than document control or areas I consider us to be strong on, such as corrective actions or control of records, resource management.

If this is possible it would be immensely helpful. I appreciate any comments.:thanks:

Check out this link - very informative.

http://elsmar.com/Forums/showthread.php?t=30057

Things to consider - while you auditor is technically correct, why do you want to leg a system or process go without knowing what has changed.

or

Do you want the auditor find it for you - where is the value.

Finally, start moving away from elements audit and incorporate process audit. You will increase the effectiveness of your processes and you auditing and during management review you could provide a meaningful report rather than a statistical motion based report.
 

AndyN

Moved On
Alleluia! Finally! A CB auditor who is correct in their comments regarding internal audit scheduling. They could have gone on to state you don't even need a calendar of audits...

The key words in the standard are "an audit program shall be established based on the status and importance of the processes..." That means basically if it don't need fixin' it don't need auditin'... Go to the places which have poor performance to goal, or have changed or are new AND could risk getting you into do-do with the customer!
 
O

oruiz2

dsanabria,
Thank you for your help. I plan on printing out this post and presenting at the next mgmt. review meeting along with new audit plan. I'm considering testing it out over a two-year time span.
 
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