Can a Quality Manager be a Lead ISO 9001 Auditor?

[Big Jim]

Not the ones I worked with didn't, Jim. We only did process based audits and never used checklists! You must hang around with the wrong auditors!

When I started as a CB auditor, that's how I was trained. Anything else was not accepted. Some of the more enlightened auditors would do part of the checklist in different "departments", and others just went through the checklist from 4.1 to 8.5.3.

Process based auditing was a huge sea change, and it was tougher for some auditors than for others. In the early days of process based auditing, what we now call audit working documents were still called "checklists" even though they were anything but checklists.

So I guess that we must not have hung around any of the same auditors.

 

[Big Jim]

In my experience, a sound understanding of ISO 9001 as it relates to the organization's BUSINESS PROCESSES, is paramount for any QMS internal auditor. Still, in my experience, 1 day of training on ISO 9001 for people who don't understand modern quality management and don't comprehend the BUSINESS PROCESSES of their respective organizations is not sufficient to close the foundational knowledge gap that any HIGH PERFORMING internal auditor should possess.

It's obvious that there are differing opinions on this point. I believe that there cannot be too much knowledge of the standard for those who perform internal audits or those who administer internal audits.

When starting off to become a CB lead auditor I took the manditory five day lead auditor course. There were ten of us in the class. Only six of us were there to become CB lead auditors. The other four were there to improve their internal auditing skills. It just amazes me that some professional seem to think that there could be too much exposure.

 

[Colin]

Does anyone register as an internal auditor with IRCA?

Fair point Andy!! ... but clearly someone thinks it is a good idea.

 

[HHakim]

In my situation.. I am getting sick of my Internal auditors when they don't know what to audit can you believed that?

 

[midrpz]

I am of the idea that in order to be a good auditor (effective anyway), you need to know as much as possible what you are auditing against. I started my career with the 5 day lead auditor course and it wasn't as smooth to go through audits while trying to understand ISO. I must say that I did have the opportunity of shadowing experienced and corporate auditors and that was a great help.

UPDATE!! On the one-day ISO9000:2008 training for to be auditors:
We had the expert of the local State university whom takes care of training ISO/auditors, and performs third party audits state wide. It was personally a great experience for me as I got to ask a lot of specific questions I had, while transitioning in my head from TS16949 (which I last experience at my last job before plant closure) and now with the 2008 version.
For the rest of the team, the 3 auditors to be and the QM, I believe it was a very good experience also. Main reason, our trainer didn't use a power point, but just the standard. She had us read each section taking turns, but the point: we got to discuss how that applied to our particular company, she pointed out to possible holes, or whether what we had in place was fair to satisfy the standard. In short, it was a combination of digesting the standard and evaluating our situation all in one.

Thanks everyone for your comments and tips, very valuable!

 

[Stijloor]

Was the process audit approach discussed?

 

[midrpz]

Yes, it was. When starting the training She showed and described the analogy with PDCA, which is the base for the structure of the new version and the diagram in section 0.2.

 

[Pcool]

We are trying to determine training for either myself (former auditor) or my manager, as lead auditor. He seems to recall that a QM is not allowed to be the lead auditor (ISO9000) of the organization , it that true? We are implementing ISO from scratch at a small company...
Thanks in advance.

Our ISO auditor was completely fine with me being both the Lead Auditor and Quality Manager for my company.
Edit: More importantly, it doesn't lay out requirements for a "lead auditor" in the standard (just that an auditor can not audit their own work).