ISO 9001 - Requirement for Process Audits

[Big Jim]

Since process audits are not required and there's a case for doing audits with another focus, why would you report an observation? Are they doing something else exclusively? Elements?

Simply because the CB's (and I would assume it flows to them from the AB's) are pushing for internal audits to be process based as others have noted earlier in this thread.

How would you call it to their attention if you didn't use an observation? Remember that observations cannot be simply soft graded nonconformances. Perhaps you prefer checklist audits?

 

[AndyN]

What's wrong with checklists? A process audit can be planned using a checklist (some people can). Doing a process audit doesn't preclude the use of a checklist, does it? Especially for new auditors! There's a lot to remember so writing it down - on a checklist - isn't a bad thing is it?

An AB may push on a CB, but the fact is that it's what's effective that counts. Tell a client in whatever manner, NC, OBS, OFI, doesn't make it right, if what they're doing works! As we know even (some) CB auditors make a hash of process audits, so just because a client apparently follows an ill-defined "process approach", doesn't make their audits better.

 

[Sidney Vianna]

Our auditor also "showed us the whip" to get us to move to process audits. Isn't it amazing that an auditor's "interpretation" (or what they have been told to enforce from ANAB or the OEM's) can be written up as a nonconformance?

I searched both ANAB's and the IATF websites for this and came up empty and I find it very suspicious that CB auditors would be required to write up this as a nonconformity.

If any of the organizations who have been written up for this type of NC, received, out of the blue, an unsolicited offer for some type of process-based internal audit training and/or literature, be aware that you might being taken for a ride. Over the years, I have heard many scams when auditors who double up as consultants write up bogus NCs and "just by coincidence", the registrant is almost immediately approached by a "friendly" consultant on how to close such CAR's.

Obviously, I am NOT IMPLYING that anyone here is involved in scams such as these, but they do exist out there.

 

[Big Jim]

What's wrong with checklists? A process audit can be planned using a checklist (some people can). Doing a process audit doesn't preclude the use of a checklist, does it? Especially for new auditors! There's a lot to remember so writing it down - on a checklist - isn't a bad thing is it?

An AB may push on a CB, but the fact is that it's what's effective that counts. Tell a client in whatever manner, NC, OBS, OFI, doesn't make it right, if what they're doing works! As we know even (some) CB auditors make a hash of process audits, so just because a client apparently follows an ill-defined "process approach", doesn't make their audits better.

Process based audits can use a checklist and they can be used to various degrees of effectiveness. For example, that is how AS9100 audits are done (except they stubbornly call the checklist an objective evidence report). The checklist is only part of the tools used to perform their process based audit. Perhaps chief among the other tools used for AS9100 are a process based audit plan and the process effectiveness assessment report (PEAR).

What I'm refering to though is a non-process approach using a checklist that walks through the standard one element at a time. Remember, that is the way it was done clear up until late 2004 or early 2005. Survaillance audits were even based on which portion of the element based checklist would be used for which audit.

Auditing with a checklist became so ingrained that even today what is more commonly called an audit working document is still called a checklist by some auditors.

 

[Sidney Vianna]

Update. I had a chance to ask about this from a very well informed source at ANAB and he has denied this to be an ANAB requirement.

Anyone who has been writing up this NC or has been in the receiving end of this type of NC should remember the "show me the shall", before validating a NC.

 

[Helmut Jilling]

Update. I had a chance to ask about this from a very well informed source at ANAB and he has denied this to be an ANAB requirement.

Anyone who has been writing up this NC or has been in the receiving end of this type of NC should remember the "show me the shall", before validating a NC.

Well, that's interesting, because I was told ANAB auditors have been hammering on this...

 

[Sidney Vianna]

Well, that's interesting, because I was told ANAB auditors have been hammering on this...

So, there should be verifiable evidence by those who state is a requirement. As you know very well, hearsay is NEVER admissible as a requirement nor evidence.

 

[Helmut Jilling]

So, there should be verifiable evidence by those who state is a requirement. As you know very well, hearsay is NEVER admissible as a requirement nor evidence.

I understand that...and have asked that question a number of times...

 

[Sidney Vianna]

I understand that...and have asked that question a number of times...

Thank you. I would suggest that, until you get verifiable evidence of confirmation of the existence of this requirement, you should stop writing up nonconformities for this ghost requirement.

For organizations which have been written up for this type of nonconformity, they must appeal it.

In my experience, if an internal audit program is half-decent, in terms of effectiveness, we should all be happy, irrespective of how they reach the end result.

 

[Helmut Jilling]

Thank you. I would suggest that, until you get verifiable evidence of confirmation of the existence of this requirement, you should stop writing up nonconformities for this ghost requirement.

For organizations which have been written up for this type of nonconformity, they must appeal it.

In my experience, if an internal audit program is half-decent, in terms of effectiveness, we should all be happy, irrespective of how they reach the end result.

I have not written any lately...got all my clients thinking in a process approach...

Though, if I were the Q Mgr at a company, I would not appeal it. The ISO standard, and the 8 ISO Mgt. Principles, both promote managing in a "Process Approach," as a superior way of managing an organization. Doing good audits in a process approach is better....