Re: Internal Auditor lack of Competence.
How would the internal auditor know to look into this? If they are being told to audit to the ISO 9001 criteria and the expectation is for them to pick up on such a fine point, the expectation is way off, in my opinion!
Who chose this auditor to audit Design? Maybe that's where the problem lies, not with competency, but with audit program management!
It's often the case that auditors are chosen from another department which is a risky situation, because of the very reasons you describe! But it has nothing to do with competency, maybe they'd be perfectly fine auditing in a department they're familiar with.
Gentleman, there are to many threads about this issue of competence.
But to be more specific,suppose that this person is schedule to audit clause 7.3 Design & Development and this department have problems with the design itself (bad data) in reverse engineering the part, and the preliminary report tells you that a hole pattern is off location by .003" .Don't everybody be in agreement that an internal auditor should be competent in mechanical drawings readings for example and see that the " true position" of the part in question is off tolerance and raise questions about the design itself.
As we all know, position toleracing is one of the most difficult features to inspect.
These and others issues with the D&D department were not challenge at all in that particular audit.
Somehow the Q.A manager seems to be O.K with that.
But to be more specific,suppose that this person is schedule to audit clause 7.3 Design & Development and this department have problems with the design itself (bad data) in reverse engineering the part, and the preliminary report tells you that a hole pattern is off location by .003" .Don't everybody be in agreement that an internal auditor should be competent in mechanical drawings readings for example and see that the " true position" of the part in question is off tolerance and raise questions about the design itself.
As we all know, position toleracing is one of the most difficult features to inspect.
These and others issues with the D&D department were not challenge at all in that particular audit.
Somehow the Q.A manager seems to be O.K with that.
Who chose this auditor to audit Design? Maybe that's where the problem lies, not with competency, but with audit program management!
It's often the case that auditors are chosen from another department which is a risky situation, because of the very reasons you describe! But it has nothing to do with competency, maybe they'd be perfectly fine auditing in a department they're familiar with.



