ISO 9001 Internal audit rotation in a small company

[PhysicsFollower]

Firstly, a big thank you I have recently started on the long road to ISO 9001 for a small company (<10 employees) and this site has been very useful.

My question in a nutshell is whether anyone can see any problems with rotating the responsibility for internal audits around the staff to get better objectivity.

We are a tight-knit organisation and most of the staff share responsibilities so this seems to me to be a natural progression of that.

If you need any more information I will be happy to provide. Thanks again

 

[Marc]

There is no requirement that says you can not do that as long as each person is *qualified* to do internal audits.

 

[insect warfare]

Have a look at this thread from 2004. It is still pretty relevant.

Bottom line should be: know what it is you want to get out of auditor rotation, and weigh the pros and cons before doing so. For some companies that is a great way to get the most out of their internal audit program - in other companies they may have resource constraints and are thus limited in their options.

Brian

 

[Murphys Law]

Physics - with only 10 people, there shouldn't be that much to audit from a quality systems point of view: ISO9001 is only compliance to procedures.

If on the other hand you are talking auditing of product continually going out the door (ie/ QC) that is different.

 

[Motorhead]

Potential downsides to rotating internal auditors:
1. Training costs and time to get multiple people qualified
2. With such a small organization, you probably shouldn't need to do a lot of internal auditing. If you rotate people around, their might be quite a bit of time between a particular person's audits, and they might become a bit rusty and slow at it.

For a company of your size, I would recommend only 2 internal auditors.

 

[TPMB4]

People talk of trained auditors. What is the right evel of training for a small company?

What if the company can not afford to spend ?1500 or whatever it now costs for an auditor training course carried out by external trainers? I know one company wanted to charge something close to ?1000 per person being trained at our site. Others ran external courses over multiple days which would effectively ramp up the costs to close that too with overnight stays, expenses, etc.

Is it acceptable for someone to just read up on auditting to carry out the audit? Or is it acceptable for someone trained in auditing to "pass on" his/her knowledge to others? In times of difficult trading, is there an acceptable way of fulfilling ISO 9001 auditing requirements without the added expense of external training?

 

[SteveK]

[

Is it acceptable for someone to just read up on auditting to carry out the audit? Or is it acceptable for someone trained in auditing to "pass on" his/her knowledge to others?

I a word - yes on both counts. There is nothing wrong with self training (who trains the trainer after all?) or to "pass" on knowledge. I would ensure though that all such training is well recorded i.e. as training records in employee files. The NB external auditor will be able to check these as proof. You might also want to record levels of competence through experience etc - possibly in a statement or in a resume. I'm not saying people get ripped off by external audit training agencies - but auditing is not rocket science IMO (just check with NASA though!).

Steve

 

[TPMB4]

I agree, if it was rocket science then I should be earning more or at least get to go into space now and again!!

Seriously, auditing is basically just asking questions and listening. Most of it is really down to the personal skill set of the auditor IMHO. Pick the right person for the job and they can often work it all out for themselves through experience. What I did / am doing.