Well, I'm not the pres, but one rung lower. I did internal audits and we just passed our audit yesterday! It was technically a surveillance audit. However, as I've posted in the past, I'm at a new company this year whose system should never have been registered in the first place so we basically had to re-implement the whole thing. Our quality manager quit in late summer, so I did basically 50% of re-engineering the system before I finally found a great person to fill the position.
So yes, I audited many of our processes. I'm not sure if my direct involvement in creating the processes, or my position in the company is a factor or not. When it's audit time, I want a real picture of what's happening. Are these processes working or not? As far as auditing and interviewing folks: they're aware, have their docs and records in order, etc. or they don't. Show me the evidence.
It should probably be noted, however, that coming from an engineering and quality background I'm the breed who realizes the quality system (business system) has a greater effect on the success of our company, and my career goals, than most other factors. I do think that anyone could be properly trained to conduct a valuable audit, even the president (unless his background is sales/marketing, maybe)
Tym Tucker
Vice President, Operations
Cable Technologies, Inc.