New to Internal Auditing - Best questions to ask?

Sidney Vianna

Post Responsibly
Staff member
Admin
#11
Sorry to be blunt about this but the first question to ask is "I am competent to perform audits?" To start with, have you been trained? If not, I strongly recommend that you attend a training course. You will then be able to work out your own 'best questions' to ask.
In the US, the phrase "STOP THE INSANITY" became famous a few years ago. Sometimes, we have to use forceful expressions for people to realize the gravity of the situation.
As long as auditing is associated with:
  • asking a bunch of questions
  • going through a checklist
  • something anyone can do
  • does not add value
  • belongs to quality
  • happens outside of the business processes
  • only exists to satisfy a requirement from a standard
  • etc.
the check step in the PDCA cycle of implementing and improving a management system will be highly hindered.

In many cases, having an audit being performed by someone who is not competent for the function is as bad as having someone not qualified to inspect a product doing so. It creates a false sense of security.

No one is blaming the OP for being thrown in that situation, but we need to raise awareness of the potential risks of doing something we are not qualified for.
 
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drgnrider

Quite Involved in Discussions
#12
Going deeper than what GARMSL12 said when opening this thread...

My background is telephony/electronics, minor stints in machining and supply. I'm not green to Quality, (I have had to do some validation/testing in the past); now I have been tasked with: Calibration, QMR (this is my ONLY title remotely linking me to ?Management?), and Internal Lead Auditor!

I have been to the 36-hr RAB-QSA Lead Auditor Course back in July, have reviewed all our ISO documents (some needed updating, some I had to sign as the new process owner...:eek: ), and did my first ever internal audit [ALONE] :mg: of one process, I did identify a NC (should have been identified three years ago) that generated a CA.

I have been doing lots of research of ISO-9001 on the web and especially here on the Cove (even printed the +140 pages of the ?what should be changed in 9001-2015? thread) and reading lots of stuff I do not fully understand? yet!

So, for my concerns:
1) What questions to ask? (getting some of the answers here off the Cove). We have pre-made ?forms? we use to mark C / NC for the internal audits, to me it just seems ?too scripted?, "too guided", "we only want you to look here"... are these "forms" normal?
2) How do I know when to ?dig? into something vs. let it go? What are some of the ?triggers??
3) How do I guide/lead my audit team when they only have done two audits more than I? (we are going into our third year of certification)
4) How do I know when I am interpreting the standard incorrectly?
5) How do I tactfully change documents the previous QMR created when he is now the Plant Director (see #1 & 6)? :mg:
6) Company wants to keep ISO 9001 ?simply? so I feel we are missing some documents, that previous QMR (see #5) said we didn?t need (e.g.: competency - there are no ?training records? someone within the company said he is competent, but no proof to back this up; I know HR has job descriptions for job titles, but they are not listed within the ISO documents, thus are they inspectable (see #2)?)

I am sure that most of this comes with experience, but with the previous QMR now Plant Director, I?m not ready for failing a customer audit, let alone the CB audit in FEB! :nono::nono:
 
H

hadye

#13
My background is all about Clinical Laboratory but Quality is the same in all aspect. From a point of view, you have to be aware with the processes that happens in the site you are auditing. If you are fully aware with the process, you have to dig in the procedures. Does it satisfy all the needs to ensure a safe productive process.

The most important thing to me if everything in place, how you are keeping track of this process, is there is a minimal requirement that you have to satisfy & according to which benchmark. If this minimal requirement is satisfied, is there is an area of improvement? Did anybody initiate any plans to improve the current process & where you are going from there.

The site that you are going to order is of course part of an institution or an organization, how is the different processes communicated between this site & the rest. Is there is a collaboration or kind of communication that need to be standardized?


If you follow this scheme, it shall be better than a canned standards or checklist
 
G

GARMSL12

#14
Hi Colin,
Your question wasn't in my opinion blunt! However I'm competent to perform audits, as I have done so in the past for a different company but only as a audit team member and it was years ago under the older ISO standard. I did brush up on a training course for ISO 9001 at Georgia Tech in Oct. and Hopefully can get the company to send me to lead auditor training sometime earlier next year.

The reason I asked about what questions to ask was, the questions on the checklist that the previous Quality Manager had made up was just a copy and paste version from the ISO website and it was so vague that it didn't fit all our departments. I have made corrections to the checklist and made it department friendly, at least purchasing won't have to answer questions about production and production about customer service and so on!!! Our first round of audits was done at the end of Oct. and I did have some findings. I worked with department heads to come up with solutions to the CA that was issued and all but 1 have been closed, the one that remains open should closed tomorrow when I do my follow up. I have a second wave of audits set for Mid Dec. since we have a big audit in Jan coming up. I know the scheduling isn't what I would have liked, I would have preferred to have spaced the audits out over the course of the year and not jam them all at the end of the year, but after I take over the ISO program in Jan I can fix that!

If you have any training websites or know of anything out there I'm not opposed to any help I know there are great minds out there who have been in this field for a long time and I enjoy talking and learning from them when I can. If you want to you can shoot me a message on here and I'll be glad to give you my email we can talk whenever.

Once again thanks for the advise to everyone. I glad I found this site.
 
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R

Rickser

#15
Be careful with the training class. Last one I went to just explained the AS9100D checklist and I was looking for a true IA class.
 

Jen Kirley

Quality and Auditing Expert
Staff member
Admin
#16
Be careful with the training class. Last one I went to just explained the AS9100D checklist and I was looking for a true IA class.
That is unfortunate. I would be upset if that is all I was presented in a class for internal auditing. Did you complain to anyone?
 
R

Rickser

#17
That is unfortunate. I would be upset if that is all I was presented in a class for internal auditing. Did you complain to anyone?
I certianly did. The particular company worded their advertisement so that you had to already know some things to realize what their class was about. I was new to the IA process and am still struggling with it.
 
G

GARMSL12

#18
I certianly did. The particular company worded their advertisement so that you had to already know some things to realize what their class was about. I was new to the IA process and am still struggling with it.
Rickser, The classes offered at Georgia Tech for IA Training for a 2 day course runs around $750.00 not including travel cost. They also offer lead auditor training, and many other ISO based training that could help you out. I know the two day course help me brush up on a lot.
 
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