Respectfully, what you think is not the question. It is what you can show. If you are going to say it is not effective, where is your evidence? You're going to need to come up with actual evidence that their audit was not effecitive. You have identified areas to really look at for that evidence. Good luck.
This is all common sense. It you audited a SMT process offsite. Do you think you can show me evidence that the manufacturing processes met these requirement:
1) Reflow oven temperature profiles and feed rate were set to the Engineering requirements.
2) Solder paste taken out of the freezer were given enough time to defrost before use.
3) Nonconforming products were identified and segregated throughout the plant and warehouse.
4) Employees know the quality policy and quality objectives
5) Measuring equipment do not have expired calibration sticker
The list go on and on. Offsite audits are OK for some sections of the requirements (eg 5.0 and internal audit). using desk audit. For requirements in 7.5, 7.6 and others, you have to be there physically to pick your samples witness conformance and interview employees to be effective.
It is my opinion that performing the entire internal audit offsite does not meet the intent of the ISO or AS standard. The company could have hired a local registered AS9100:2009 auditor to perform an internal audit for 2 days. The going rate is about $1,500 total.
On the minor NCR, I did not say that their auditing process was ineffective. I states that their internal auditing process did not meet the intent of the AS standard. I stated that the report did not mention the audits were conducted offsite, how the audit was conducted (inadequate planning) and their procedure did not say that offsite audit was an option. They have been conducting offsite audit for years. So this is actually their normal internal auditing process. This non-standard auditing process should have been documented in their Internal Audit procedure, which is one of the required procedure. Guidelines should be listed in the procedure for planning, execution and reporting offsite internal audit.
-Tony