How many audits a year do your internal auditors perform?

How many audits a year do your internal auditors perform?

  • 1

    Votes: 3 15.0%
  • 2-5

    Votes: 9 45.0%
  • 6-10

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • >10

    Votes: 8 40.0%

  • Total voters
    20

Coury Ferguson

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#11
For the life of me I can't see how doing two audits a year is meeting the requirements of a) the standard and b) the business!
Two audits, depending on the length of time spent per each day (s) should be sufficient. It is like doing surveillance audits at every six months from your Registrar (CB).

By the way this thread was created in 2003.
 
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#13
For the life of me I can't see how doing two audits a year is meeting the requirements of a) the standard and b) the business!
Okay, let's say you are a small stamper (25 employees). You stamp blanks. Your dies are customer supplied, as is your steel. All of your process are pretty much straight forward and simple. What's there to audit? You've got a mature system (all of the bugs are worked out), you're following your processes, major changes are rare.

I have a difficult time understanding why you would have to audit monthly, unless you have a very complex system, or there are a lot of changes.

I was at a place last month that had a brand new QMS (didn't have one before). They had a whole bunch of different processes (stamping, bending, welding, painting, sewing, etc.). Despite the different processes, each process was being performed consistently within the rules they established. I found nothing that would make me want to audit them monthly (or even quarterly), if I were their internal auditor. Did I find things? Yes. But even with the stuff I found, there was nothing that would make me feel that the process "status" requires more frequent auditing.
 
#14
Okay, let's say you are a small stamper (25 employees). You stamp blanks. Your dies are customer supplied, as is your steel. All of your process are pretty much straight forward and simple. What's there to audit? You've got a mature system (all of the bugs are worked out), you're following your processes, major changes are rare.

I have a difficult time understanding why you would have to audit monthly, unless you have a very complex system, or there are a lot of changes.

I was at a place last month that had a brand new QMS (didn't have one before). They had a whole bunch of different processes (stamping, bending, welding, painting, sewing, etc.). Despite the different processes, each process was being performed consistently within the rules they established. I found nothing that would make me want to audit them monthly (or even quarterly), if I were their internal auditor. Did I find things? Yes. But even with the stuff I found, there was nothing that would make me feel that the process "status" requires more frequent auditing.
And their management all slept well at night.............? So what you're saying is nothing ever changes? No new requirements, new people, changed processes, new suppliers, new customers, new equipment etc. etc. No rejects off the process, no rework, no waste, nothing of any interest......

Well, yes I can see your point about not auditing...........!!
 
#15
And their management all slept well at night.............? So what you're saying is nothing ever changes? No new requirements, new people, changed processes, new suppliers, new customers, new equipment etc. etc. No rejects off the process, no rework, no waste, nothing of any interest......
Their management does sleep well at night. To they have changes? Yes, they do. Do they have occasional problems? Yep, they have those two. But they have processes in place to handle those. But, here is my point. Take the paint line, for example. It has run smoothly for years. Can it be improved? Undoubtedly. In fact, the manager is trying to find a better way to ensure water is not retained after the pre-painting wash. It has not created a problem, but right now it is a manual process using compressed air. He sees that as a waste and as a potential problem. But back to the audit. The initial audit found a handmade work instruction that was about 5 years old. It was not in document control. They decided they did not need it anymore, and removed it. They also went through the entire company to purge any remaining old, unapproved work instructions. So, if nothing changes from the January audit through the June audit, why audit in between? What is to be gained from auditing something more often? Now, should something happen (not just a customer complaint – it could be any change), then they would modify the audit plan to ensure the integrity of the QMS. Of course, the argument is that the audits should then be auditing for continual improvement instead of compliance, and that is a good argument (if not the only argument). But they have a suggestion program for that, and semi-annual audits help reinforce that.

Well, yes I can see your point about not auditing...........!!
I did not make a point about not auditing….. the point was not to audit too often. If I audit the quality policy (and find it good) and nothing changes, do I have to examine it every month?
 
#16
Their management does sleep well at night. To they have changes? Yes, they do. Do they have occasional problems? Yep, they have those two. But they have processes in place to handle those.
So, how do you know they followed those processes and that they're effective? Are you proposing to wait nearly a half year to check on that? Also, from your comments, I'm not sure I understand the paint line story, however, I'm not proposing you have to do a system audit every month, nor keep checking on 'quality policy' (I've never quite understood why auditors make such a big deal about asking folks that).

What I'm suggesting, especially for a company that has its act together (as you suggest Dave) is a) that a predefined schedule isn't worth having and b) the schedule should go after those changes to see if the system is in control of the changes or when problems occur to asure that the prescribed system is being utilized. Having a predefined schedule means having to change it when stuff happens. Furthermore, if you wait too long (and this may be anywhere from 6 to 12 months after the fact) to tell management, they won't take you seriously, will they!
 
#17
So, how do you know they followed those processes and that they're effective? Are you proposing to wait nearly a half year to check on that? Also, from your comments, I'm not sure I understand the paint line story, however, I'm not proposing you have to do a system audit every month, nor keep checking on 'quality policy' (I've never quite understood why auditors make such a big deal about asking folks that).

What I'm suggesting, especially for a company that has its act together (as you suggest Dave) is a) that a predefined schedule isn't worth having and b) the schedule should go after those changes to see if the system is in control of the changes or when problems occur to asure that the prescribed system is being utilized. Having a predefined schedule means having to change it when stuff happens. Furthermore, if you wait too long (and this may be anywhere from 6 to 12 months after the fact) to tell management, they won't take you seriously, will they!

If your processes are working well, problems will surface and you will be able to react to them. I agree that you would not want to wait 6 months to find a problem. I do not like the idea of auditing just to audit. That is one reason I take issue to TS's requirement of scheduling to an annual plan. It kinda forces a more rigid audit schedule that might not be value added. If audits are only speed traps, looking for “gotchas”, then the system will eventually fail. Over auditing can do that. This also results in the types of thing that you mentioned. I have never liked a rigid schedule. And although auditing semi-annually sounds rigid, it really isn’t.

One of the things I recommend is the use of what I call supplemental audits. These are used to supplement the regularly scheduled audits. Supplemental audits occur when special events require an additional audit. This would include any changes that could have a effect (positive or negative) on the QMS (helps reinforce 5.4.2 b and 8.2.2). The regularly scheduled audits cover the continual improvement aspect, and supplemental and follow-up audits cover compliance.
 
#18
Agreed, Dave.

I'd suggest that you don't have to have worked everything out about the audits for a whole year hence, to still comply with TS. Having an annual plan, in my book, doesn't mean predicting every audit. In fact, I've worked with TS clients who got creative and now don't have a whole calendar of audits. They simply lay down a frequency (bi-monthly in this case) then use the issues of the time to give direction to the focus of the 'next' audit. This defines the 'scope' and 'criteria' of each successive audit. Indeed, this is pretty much as ISO 9004 guides us.

It's never made sense to me to try to run a whole calendar of audits. Who the heck knows what needs auditing in 6, 9 or 12 month's time? and to keep updating the schedule just feeds managements' (unspoken) perception that "audits are all a waste of time and the guy (or girl) running them doesn't know what to audit next.........."

Also, there's no need for those different categories of 'supplemental' audts. K.I.S.S is the best policy, I believe. Audits aren't rocket science, but treating the earth as flat isn't winning us friends with the people who count!
 
#19
Nothing creates more excitement and participation as the topic: "Audits."
Old threads, new threads, future threads; it does not matter, anything containing the magic word gets Fellow Covers going. :biglaugh:

Stijloor.
Yeah - give me audits!! I love them!!:lmao:

So many people have been trained and we're still not getting much value out of audits...........and they're far more interesting than G D & T don't you think??:agree1:
 
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