Using consultants for Internal Audits

[DRAMMAN]

Are there any members who are using external consultants to perform your internal audits?

 

[Tara Monson]

We used one for our first internal audit, simply to have one on record for our ISO certification. We were being forced to meet a certification deadline from Corporate and had to outsource.

It worked well for us, and we got some training in the process.

 

[normzone]

I'm not, but I've heard tell of some who are. I can see two sides to that coin.

One, you get a no-punches-pulled audit. The external internal auditor doesn't have any friends to protect, or fears of exposing dirty laundry.

The other side of that coin is, he won't have any inside knowledge of where the bodies are buried.

So whether or not this would be a good idea is dependent on how good your internal audit program is.

 

[mihzago]

I've used external consultants for internal audits at few companies.
For many small companies using an external consultant is the only way to perform an internal audit.

 

[AndyN]

I've done them, but they were simply a "clean house" exercise before the CB auditor came in. As a result, they were only done once, were expensive relatively speaking and the motive for doing them was entirely wrong. I wouldn't be doing them like that again...

 

[Ninja]

My company used to outsource all of our internal audits.
It was an effective way to handle this requirement and, as stated above, gave a "no pulled punches" review of our QMS.

As we grew up (largely through this consultant) over a number of years, we took internal audits inside when the cost of them was no longer yielding as much value.

Note that it was the same auditor each time, and he got to know where the bodies were buried.
When there were fewer and fewer bodies, and he was really reaching to find non-compliance, we thanked him and discontinued the relationship.

We now do our own internal audits, led by one of the people trained by that consultant.
For us, it was a good investment.

 

[Eredhel]

We used a consultant as we got our ISO 9001 certification and we used him to do our internal audit prior to the registrar's Stage I audit. It was incredibly valuable and we plan on using him for our internal audits from now on. It will be interesting to see if that value decreases as we grow and our system matures.

 

[J0anne]

Not at present and I would prefer to train staff internally on auditing as that helps them gain a better understanding of the QMS.

 

[somashekar]

Are there any members who are using external consultants to perform your internal audits?

Choose good consultants
Use them for the internal auditing
Involve with them
Learn the techniques
Attempt internal auditing
Get the feel and comfort
Internal audit yourself
Associate with the consultants on continual basis for learning and auditing if needed
.
..
...
The goal has to be that internal auditing must become an integral part of your organization.
We did this way.

 

[vedika]

Yes it is required to identify weak areas and to confIr that all clauses are implemented