Does an Audit Schedule have to be a Controlled Document?

[Don Watt]

Does an audit schedule have to be a controlled document?
e.g. at the start of the year I produce a schedule / plan of the internal audits expected to be conducted throughout the year.
As time progresses various revisions may be needed to include additional audits arising from quality problems or to re-arrange audits to allow for new requirements to be effectively introduced.
Does the initial plan need to be at revision level 1 and each amendment to plan included at an incremented revision level?

 

[wpbudd]

My audit schedule is controlled. However, the controlled part is the form number not the actual data. My work instruction states that updates may be necessary. Again, only the form in control not the information, since said information may change at a give time.

 

[David Mullins]

No the audit schedule does not have to be a controlled document.

The auditor may well expect a date on the schedule to signify the status/currency. They may also ask who gets the schedule.
How often is it updated.

The important thing is that the schedule complies with what your procedure says.

Cheers.

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[matthew evans - 2002]

Are you mad. Of course an audit plan is a controlled document. The point about the schedule being updated to include additional audits is covered by simply having a note at the bottom of the plan stating that additional audits can be carried out and a mark being put onto the audit plan. The blank audit schedule should have a form number and a revision status for the blank form only. The completed schedule only requires the year as an heading.

 

[John C]

Matthew Evans,
The use of numbers and revisions is optional, being only the conventional, and not the only possible, method of control. When numbers and revs are used, they apply only to procedures and forms and will be applicable, of course, to the procedure which describes the planning and implementation of the internal audit. The actual schedule is not a procedure. It may be on a form but there is nothing in the Standard to say that it must be. Basically, a schedule (by definition) is only an ordered list - not necessarily a dated list. It can be on the back of a postcard for all that it matters, or it could be only a verbal agreement.

In fact, the second paragraph of 4.17 (the only mention of scheduling in the Standard) gives us leeway to initiate or postpone audits according to perceived need rather than use a dated list. (This relates to the flexibility to changes in circumstances mentioned by David and Lurker above) For example; I can imagine an organisation where the decision to hold, or not hold an internal audit, is made at Management Review, depending on the current situation and imminent events. This method might have become the conventional approach from the time the first edition of ISO 9001 was introduced, had most of us not already become bound by the chains of bureaucracy. There is nothing in the Standard to prevent this approach and it has a lot to commend it. It would align the implementation of ISO 9001 more closely with Deming, particularly regards items; 2,3,5 and 7 of his 14 Points For Management and conform to Shonberger’s advice to eliminate waste throughout the organisation.
In such a case, the minutes of the meeting, filed anyway as the quality record of Management Review, would provide both the schedule and the quality record of scheduling. (Note; the control of quality records is a different subject entirely)

Please don’t hesitate to call me mad, if that is what you think, but be sure to tell me where I’m wrong, and don’t let it be just your opinion; back it up with evidence from your experience and, most of all, evidence taken directly from ISO 9001 since that is the document under consideration and furthering of our understanding of compliance with that document is the object of these discussions. Whatever else we get from these discussions, we all want to learn.
Respectfully yours,
John C

 

[Claes Gefvenberg]

I would regard the schedule as a record.

We use an Access application to run our entire audit process. That includes reports, checklists and schedule as well as follow ups. Once a year we enter the audit schedule, print it out and sign it.

This application also sends the audit plan to our intranet. Any changes or additions to the plan is relayed to the intranet.

Our procedures refer to the application.

Claes Gefvenberg

[This message has been edited by Claes Gefvenberg (edited 22 June 2000).]

 

[David Mullins]

It's amazing what happens when you remove the blinkers and look at how the standard (any standard or system model for that matter) can be applied to best suit an organisation, and still be compliant. For those people who are establishing a new quality management system, I would say: don't make the hurdles too high from day one, make them achievable and then progressively improve the system, thus raising the bar.
I enjoy my open mind, my ability to conceptualize, and being just a little bit mad (well let's call it eccentric).
Cheers.

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[Marc]

Originally posted by David Mullins:
It's amazing what happens when you remove the blinkers and look at how the standard (any standard or system model for that matter) can be applied to best suit an organisation, and still be compliant. For those people who are establishing a new quality management system, I would say: don't make the hurdles too high from day one, make them achievable and then progressively improve the system, thus raising the bar.

Think INTENT in my opinion.

 

[Steven Truchon]

Yikes!
I hope the schedule is not supposed to be controlled. I dont recall ever recognizing it as needing to be. For me its a method of easily organizing my year and it always changes as I go. After its all said and done I do keep the final revision as a record along with a time account for all of my auditors for qualification and costing purposes.
Maybe its late right now, or my lobotomy scar has opened up accidentally, but anyone please explain why would it require doc control?
Thanks

 

[AJPaton]

Steven,

Glad you asked that question. Our last audit had an observation that we should show how audits are re-scheduled. I went back to the standard, and . . .

"The supplier shall establish and maintain documented procedures for planning and implementing internal quality audits to verify whether quality activities and related results comply with *PLANNED* arrangements...

This is where our auditor must have gotten his observation, and may be where the talk of controlling the schedule comes from.

AJP