Keeping Internal Audits simple & effective
carolk79 said:
I work in a small family run fiberglass shop. We are currently ISO 9001 certified. We recently had an audit and received a minor in internal auditing. This was a well deserved hit. Upper management is now willing to do something about the nonconformance. Until this hit I could not get the people I needed to do proper internal audits.
Anyways, I now have to retrain four internal audits who had outside training about three years ago.
Only one cuurently does audits with me but neither one of us are very well trained.
Does anyone have suggestions that would help me train for this???
Training is easly available...its just a matter of how much time you want to spend learning it....and how much your company is willing to spend on the training.
Conducting benchmark activities with suppliers and customer is always time well spent. A lot can be learned by observing what other organizations do....all part of the mutual beneficial supplier/customer relationship ISO encourages so well.
I'm responsible for our audit program at work. We are a small company of 47. We supply plastic components, and our customer base is both medical and industrial. I have received training and read books on the topic.
Internal audits is a unique process, and the more you conduct, the more effective the process is. For starters, I don't use the term "internal audit"...people freak out....and at times scurry away like mice sometimes saying "where's my cheese".....
sorry about that off on a quality tangent there
Our audit program is called a PSP Audit (Product / System / Process). My audit schedule details each department and the type of audit that will be conducted. Of course manufacturing gets the full PSP, as where customer service gets the SP audit. The overall schedule is flexible, and I tend to focus on the "hot spots".
It is also important to ask question that will give you a sense of the culture and work enviroment. You could ask; "Can you offer suggestion for improvement that would make your job more effecient and effective?". Get the people involved, employee involvement is healthy to any organization.
Well I apologize in advance for the quality geek talk.....just interesting stuff