Is it necessary to Audit our CARs and SCARs?

[TigerLilie]

Hello All,

I know auditors cannot audit their own work, so we retain a consultant to audit our internal audits. The consultant also reviews our CARs and SCARs. However, I am under pressure to keep costs down, is it necessary to have an audit of our CARs and SCARs?

 

[AndyN]

Re: Audit of CARs and SCARs

Yes! They're part of your QMS, right? Maybe you're over thinking the "audit your own work" aspect. Or the consultant is on to a money spinner making you think they HAVE to do this! CARS and SCARS aren't the auditors work, are they? They might FIND a reason for a CAR to be written, but after that, what does the auditor have to do with it? I can't see a compelling reason to keep a consultant on to do this!

 

[dubrizo]

Re: Audit of CARs and SCARs

TigerLilie,

Does your proceedure for Internal Audits address your question in any way? Have you considered training somebody from outside of quality, within your organization, to audit the sections of you QMS addressing CARs/SCARs/PARs?

 

[TigerLilie]

Good point Andy, as an auditor I do not write CARs or SCARs. Thus I do not see why they need to be reviewed by our auditor. Honestly, it hasn't been all that value added of an activity the past couple of years.

Dubrizo, there is nothing in our SOPs about needing another review of CARs and SCARs. Training someone else in the organization may be an option, although we are all swamped. I'll still offer the option to Exec.

Thank you for your help.

 

[GoKats78]

I would train someone outside you department to audit the audit process...

We audit of Corrective Actions (we have 2 audits) to show evidence of implementation of countermeasures and to show effectiveness of countermeasures

 

[TigerLilie]

If we train someone outside of QA to audit the audits, CARs and SCARs, would have to be a person completely out of the scope of audited QMS processes? For example, if we train someone in Contracts to audit, would it be a conflict for them to audit the Contract Review audit?

 

[AndyN]

If we train someone outside of QA to audit the audits, CARs and SCARs, would have to be a person completely out of the scope of audited QMS processes? For example, if we train someone in Contracts to audit, would it be a conflict for them to audit the Contract Review audit?

As I said, you're "over thinking" this. How big is the organization? All you have to deal with is someone NOT auditing their work! The auditor doesn't HAVE to come from "OUTSIDE". In fact, I'd suggest that, someone who understands the process FIRST and can be impartial is better than someone who DOESN'T know how sales operates, for example.

 

[John Broomfield]

Hello All,

I know auditors cannot audit their own work, so we retain a consultant to audit our internal audits. The consultant also reviews our CARs and SCARs. However, I am under pressure to keep costs down, is it necessary to have an audit of our CARs and SCARs?

Tiger,

You could show the cost benefits of your consultant doing all the internal audits. Ask the consultant to streamline their sampling, evaluation and reporting.

Don't forget to include the increased productivity of the audit process, particularly in terms of auditee time.

And, by monitoring the process before the audit, you could focus your auditing on the effectiveness of monitoring, correction and improvement of all the processes in your system.

But keep control of your audit programme to ensure it fulfills top management's objectives.

John

 

[dubrizo]

if we train someone in Contracts to audit, would it be a conflict for them to audit the Contract Review audit?

Your question confuses me... the way it reads to me is this person would be auditing the audit which scope includes Contract Review.

As long as the person auditing a particular area is not auditing their own work ("Auditors shall not audit their own work." 8.2.2, b) they're fine. If there is any grey area, utilize another internal auditor from a completely different job function than is being audited.