ISO 9001:2015 Internal Audit Template/Form Advice

[zoolieu]

Good afternoon all.
We are a small (4 people) parts distributor and I feel we have a fantastic team of competent people who are always trying to improve and grow the company and QMS. I have templates of very elaborate audits and I wanted to see examples of simple I/A options. Can I create my own simple audit with just sections such as: HR, Shipping, Receiving, Purchasing, etc and just make observations in each of these on a record to be reviewed in MRM etc?
So confused by ISO - Do we go big or go practical?

 

[qpled]

I am in a similar situation - small distributor, 12 employees. In the past I have worked with both checklist style - ISO element focused IA's as well as observation/discussion process focused IA's. My plan is to mix both styles into a new IA template for our transition to 9001:2015 this spring. I plan to have a separate template for each process (similar processes to the list in your post), with an emphasis on proof of compliance with the new parts of the standard (risk based thinking and knowledge of context are two examples that I can think of immediately). I am hoping to begin implementation in late April and I will post my results.

 

[qpled]

Thank you for your support. I am new to ISO overall and this is our first audit 3/29 to hopefully become certified.
I do not mean to be obtuse, but can it be hand written? How extensive must it be and is there a particular format that the IA must be constructed under?

IMHO (I am not an expert!) the answers to your questions are yes, IA results can be hand written though it may be better to keep the questions, responses, etc... online for easy access and referral, and No, you can decide the format to use to best fit your organization.

 

[Colin]

Audit findings can be in many different forms, hand written being perfectly acceptable. In a strange way I like to see handwritten findings sometimes - I have a terrible habit of editing my notes when I type them up!

As for the format, I have been wedded to a checklist style of auditing for many years but there are better options sometimes, especially for small companies. I often type up the report as a narrative, just say what you saw and how effective it was e.g. the sales procedure states that all orders will be reviewed before acceptance but in practice, it appears that only orders over a certain value are being reviewed e.g. order No 12345 dated 4th July had not been reviewed. etc, etc.

To me, this is much more meaningful for a small business than a heap of ticks and crosses on a checklist. It also encourages a more personalised view of the process because the auditor has to think what they are doing rather than following a checklist produced by someone else, some years ago.

 

[Access2hc]

Many instances, as the aspects of the quality management system are intertwined, it's usually not usual to have one clause or one requirement as a deficiency - it's usually a combination. Why so? that very much depends on how you write up a finding. Some have a symtomatic approach (i.e. this wasn't done, that was wrong. ), some explain the circumstances in which the symptom appears. I believe in the latter and hence have findings that can stretch to a paragraph in length, which makes checklists and handwritten forms not too practical.

Having a audit plan (scope of which the audit is to be conducted, not really the minute-by-minute recount of the audit itself, because it's never going to be followed and you'll get yourself an un-necessary finding).. is important and required.

then have a simple form that mentions the finding, the clause that in which the finding entails, and an assessment of its criticality, would be good enough. scribble the notes, then find time to write it up properly.

you'd find that a well described finding, leads to a more focused failure investigation and root cause analysis, and hence a more efficient way of addressing the finding.

hope it helps

Cheers,
Ee Bin
@Access2HC