Internal Audit for a Design Consultant Company

S

sonice

Hi,
I do not have internal audit background and am trying to find a quick course for auditing.
In the mean time, I have a question. Please help me.
I work for a consultant company that is not ISO certified, I have developed their QMP based on ISO and customer requirements. I need to do internal monthly audits as per client requirement. My company is doing only design work (Civil/structure/mechanical and electrical) not production/ construction work. I need to know what areas I need to do audit for, I am asked to provide audit schedule and i need to know what i need to put in schedule...please provide links, forms or any related help will be appreciated.
thanks in advance!
Lone
 

Stijloor

Leader
Super Moderator
Welcome to The Cove Forums!! :bigwave: :bigwave:

I do not know if there are "quick" courses on auditing, but there's a lot of information about auditing here at The Cove Forums.

If you are familiar with the ISO 9001:2008 Standard, you may have noticed that clause 7.3 Design and Development makes up a big piece of your quality management system.

Here is a post + link from our friend and colleague Somashekar BV that may help you to start thinking and planning. There's a lot more to auditing, but at least it will help you to get started.

Stijloor.
 
J

Jeff Frost

Since ISO 9001 was developed for both manufactures and service providers all requirements of the International Standard apply to your organization unless you can take a Clause 1.2 exclusion. Reread the Standard and replace the word “product” with “service”.
 
J

JRKH

Hi,
I do not have internal audit background and am trying to find a quick course for auditing.
In the mean time, I have a question. Please help me.
I work for a consultant company that is not ISO certified, I have developed their QMP based on ISO and customer requirements. I need to do internal monthly audits as per client requirement. My company is doing only design work (Civil/structure/mechanical and electrical) not production/ construction work. I need to know what areas I need to do audit for, I am asked to provide audit schedule and i need to know what i need to put in schedule...please provide links, forms or any related help will be appreciated.
thanks in advance!
Lone

While there are certainly courses out there to teach you how to audit, perhaps we can get you started here.

yousay that your system is not certified, but you cuatomer wants you to "audit monthly" - Is this because the customer audited you and wrote you up for not having an audit plan?? I ask because I am not sure why a customer would be requiring you to do internal audits on a monthly basis.

Something smells fishy about this....Anyway - to your needs.

To Prepare for the audits and To determine an audit plan:
First look at your processes.
Pull the policies and procedures and instructions that govern these various processes.
Read these so that you know what the process is suppose to do, what are the inputs and outputs.
Now - depending on the size and complexity of the various processes, determine a "schedule" to audit them. Publish said Schedule so that everyone knows the plan.

To perform the actual audits:
Review the procedures.
Determine some questions you want to ask those you interview. These are bascially asking, what do you do, how do you do it and what are your inputs, what are your outputs etc. you might also ask if they have read the procedures, do they know where they are and so forth....
Basically what you want to do is just move through the process looking to see if everyone knows what to do, is doing it, and if what is actually happening conforms to the documented process procedures.
Document what you see, who you talk to etc.

To complete the audit:
Take your notes with the data and observations and compare it to the documented procedures.
Where they match up is all well and good.
Where they don't match up woudl constitute a Non-conformance based on objective evidence or personal observation.
Write a brief audit report containing both good and bad based on your observations.
This goes to the manager ofthe process for action on any of the findings.
Make sure the manager knows he must respond and in what time frame.

Follow-up:
Make sure that the manager responds with a corrective action and, if necessary do a follow-up audit just to cover this (these) issues of non conformance.
Once you are satisfied that all is well, close out the audit report and file.

Note on the above.....
I've been out of the game for several years now and typed this quickly and from memory. I trust the other denizens here will fill in and/or correct any of my shortcomings above.

The thing to recognize is that auditing is nothing more than checking up and makeing sure that the company (process) is actually doing what it says (procedures) it will do an in the way they say they will do it.
Auditing is simply the "C" in the PDCA cycle....

I hope some of this helps.

Peace
James
 

harry

Trusted Information Resource
.............. I need to do internal monthly audits as per client requirement. My company is doing only design work (Civil/structure/mechanical and electrical) not production/ construction work. ....................

As one who had some experience in this line of business, I would like to note that the word 'audit' is 'alien' to a lot of the people involved. I would suggest that you find out from your client what is their exact purpose or intention.

As most clients are concerned with 'delivery dates', I am suspecting that what they want you to do is to monitor your progress on a monthly basis. In which case, a simple monitoring plan in the form of a checklist or a simple progress report should do. A schedule in this case would be a simple project plan (gantt chart) for the projects concerned.
 

AndyN

Moved On
Hi,
I do not have internal audit background and am trying to find a quick course for auditing.
In the mean time, I have a question. Please help me.
I work for a consultant company that is not ISO certified, I have developed their QMP based on ISO and customer requirements. I need to do internal monthly audits as per client requirement. My company is doing only design work (Civil/structure/mechanical and electrical) not production/ construction work. I need to know what areas I need to do audit for, I am asked to provide audit schedule and i need to know what i need to put in schedule...please provide links, forms or any related help will be appreciated.
thanks in advance!
Lone

As has been posted - you won't find a 'quick' audit course to be of any use. Typically they take 2-3 days = 16/24 hours. Beware of anything less or done remotely.
In the mean time, you audit your own QMS, by using the 'process approach'. That means you have to decide what processes of your consultancy should be audited and when. One a month isn't a bad place to start. You should just choose to do an audit/month, then decide what to audit (the scope) a few weeks before. DO not try to put a whole 12 months schedule together - you will be missing the point of 'status and importance' (see 8.2.2)
 
L

lone123

Thanks a lot everyone!
This consultancy has never been audited. There is a new client who is requiring us to submit a QMP and we did it. Next step is to prepare ourself for an audit, end of this month from client.
We did not have any procedures. We adopted some of the client procedures, as allowed by Client.
What I am still unable to understand is, am I suposse to audit that procedures are being followed, and whatelse for a design work? Do I need to specifically mention in my Audit schedule and plan what I am going to audit? What are the contents I need to put in my check sheet, schedule and plan?
Again thanks a lot AndyN, Harry, Jeff Frost, Stijloor and JRKH
Please post any attachment you can share.
Best regards.
 

Helmut Jilling

Auditor / Consultant
As has been posted - you won't find a 'quick' audit course to be of any use. Typically they take 2-3 days = 16/24 hours. Beware of anything less or done remotely.
In the mean time, you audit your own QMS, by using the 'process approach'. That means you have to decide what processes of your consultancy should be audited and when. One a month isn't a bad place to start. You should just choose to do an audit/month, then decide what to audit (the scope) a few weeks before. DO not try to put a whole 12 months schedule together - you will be missing the point of 'status and importance' (see 8.2.2)

I, and several others on the Elsmar Cove, provide very good internal auditor training classes. AndyN is right, it must be at least 2/3 days. You can contact various trainers by private message if you want more info. My training was recently updated and reissued as v.3.0. So far, classes have loved the new approach. I have a small promo I can send you, if you are interested.
 
J

JRKH

Thanks a lot everyone!
This consultancy has never been audited. There is a new client who is requiring us to submit a QMP and we did it. Next step is to prepare ourself for an audit, end of this month from client.
We did not have any procedures. We adopted some of the client procedures, as allowed by Client.
What I am still unable to understand is, am I suposse to audit that procedures are being followed, and whatelse for a design work? Do I need to specifically mention in my Audit schedule and plan what I am going to audit? What are the contents I need to put in my check sheet, schedule and plan?
Again thanks a lot AndyN, Harry, Jeff Frost, Stijloor and JRKH
Please post any attachment you can share.
Best regards.

Based on what you've written above, my suggestion is that you wait and not try to do an audit of yourself just yet. Let the client perform his audit. While he is there, observe and learn. Ask him these questions.
If your client is aware that this is all new to you, he will likely be quite helpful.

Quality Audits aren't about accusing or hurting or eliminating, they are about learning, and promoting and being helpful. This is generally even more true in a supplier audit. The new client is not interested in eliminating you as a supplier. They just want to assure that you can do the work and comply with certain requirements (like ISO).
And while we've all heard of the occasional "stinker", for teh most part those involved in auditing, and quality in general, are a pretty close knit and helpful fraternity.
So try not to worry.

Just on a hunch I googled "Quality Audit Plan" and came up with THIS. Note that as you start to look it over a window will "pop-up" asking you to subscribe. You can just close that window using the "X" at the upper right corner of the pop-up window.
I also noted at the bottom of the page, links to other pages such as common questions....This might give you more detail than what we can offer in our postings and spur some ideas as to how to proceed.

To you specific questions....
Am I suposse to audit that procedures are being followed, and what else for a design work?
Yes, you audit that procedures are being followed. You should be looking to see that the actual output of the process is the same as the intended output.

Do I need to specifically mention in my Audit schedule and plan what I am going to audit?
Yes - and audit schedule will generally say something like
March - Contract Review
April - Order Entry
....and so on.

What are the contents I need to put in my check sheet?
This would include. The Date, Areas being audited, any procedure numbers and name of the auditor in the header.
This would be followed by the questions leaving space for comments, recording evidence observed etc.

Peace
James
 

AndyN

Moved On
To your specific questions....
Am I supposed to audit that procedures are being followed, and what else for a design work?
Yes, you audit that procedures are being followed. You should be looking to see that the actual output of the process is the same as the intended output.

Do I need to specifically mention in my Audit schedule and plan what I am going to audit?
Yes - and audit schedule will generally say something like
March - Contract Review
April - Order Entry
....and so on.

For clarification - the purpose of audit is to verify that the procedures are being followed and are effective...compliance by itself is not enough!

Also, an audit program (plan) is not required to be predicted over 12 months - as I believe I mentioned previously. No-one can plan for something to be audited, based on status and importance, over more than a few months and certainly not 12, and still be accurate! The guidance in ISO 9004 states that audits should be planned flexibly. It's perfectly OK to indicate the frequency of audits and then choose a target days or weeks before...depending on the business issue at hand.
 
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