What do you do when an auditee says "No thank you"

Wes Bucey

Quite Involved in Discussions
#81
5.6.2 of ISO 9001:2008 says, in part, "The input to management review shall include information on...results of audits...."

There's certainly some wiggle room in interpretation vis a vis the present situation, but I'm sure that 5.6.2 is what Mikishots is referring to.
In the sense that ALL internal audits are subject to management review, I agree. My bone of contention was with the word "directly" which certainly implied a "drop everything and rush right to management" urgency to the report versus a notation in the regular audit report.
 
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Mikishots

Trusted Information Resource
#82
where's the "shall" on reporting directly to management? I'm not familiar with any such clause in the normal ISO Standards. Citation, please?
It's standard practise, and a very obvious part of the audit procedure. This is clearly spelled out through any publication from the ASQ Quality Audit Division (it's even in the exam). If difficulties are encountered with auditees in refusing to answer auditor's questions, it makes no sense to just leave it with the auditee; management needs to know. Audit reviews are a requirement as part of Review Input at any rate.

I see no "shall", nor a statement that it was required in "normal ISO standards".
 
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Mikishots

Trusted Information Resource
#83
In the sense that ALL internal audits are subject to management review, I agree. My bone of contention was with the word "directly" which certainly implied a "drop everything and rush right to management" urgency to the report versus a notation in the regular audit report.
I see your point. This was not my intent. If difficulties like these are encountered, I have seen auditors stop the audit and inform management - if you are being paid by an organization to audit, they need to be informed that you are being impeded in your tasks that they are spending money for you to do. This falls under auditor ethics as well.
 

Wes Bucey

Quite Involved in Discussions
#84
I see your point. This was not my intent. If difficulties like these are encountered, I have seen auditors stop the audit and inform management - if you are being paid by an organization to audit, they need to be informed that you are being impeded in your tasks that they are spending money for you to do. This falls under auditor ethics as well.
Doesn't necessarily apply with internal audits - there are often "self-defense" issues for an employee-auditor to consider which an external independent auditor need not consider. Stopping an audit in midstream and running to report an issue that does NOT affect life, health, safety in the immediate future is an action to be considered with ALL its possible ramifications.
 

Sidney Vianna

Post Responsibly
Staff member
Admin
#85
The auditors put down "lacking of management support was noticed" as an observation. It was taken off.
Treesei, assuming that you work for an organization that is ISO 9001 compliant/certified, consider communicating with the management representative about this, if s/he is not one of the people who already censored the contents of the audit report. As we all know, good internal auditors are hard to find and keep. If such people believe their work will be diluted by misguided managers, they will feel even less inclined to perform their duties as internal auditors seriously.

If a manager believes that customer feedback does not need to be analyzed, s/he is harming the effectiveness of the quality system considerably.

The management representative needs to be aware of this situation and you would be perfectly within your authority to approach him/her with this concern. Personally, I would have phrased my statement of the finding as an observation to the effect that auditors had no objective evidence to ascertain whether data analsysis on the complaints were done by the organization. I would not immediately report that as "lack of management support" for the simple reasons that statement is loaded with implications. Stick to the facts and see where this goes. Kudos to you for doing the right thing. :agree1:
 

Mikishots

Trusted Information Resource
#86
Doesn't necessarily apply with internal audits - there are often "self-defense" issues for an employee-auditor to consider which an external independent auditor need not consider. Stopping an audit in midstream and running to report an issue that does NOT affect life, health, safety in the immediate future is an action to be considered with ALL its possible ramifications.
Agreed. I understand what you're getting at. I personally wouldn't stop, but management will be informed in the closing meeting. This is wandering a bit from the original post, but the intent remains the same - management will be informed.
 
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G

Groo3

#87
My suggestion to add a manager to an audit team is to enforce the concept that auditees may face peril for defying the audit because of the visible presence of the manager.
:agree1: I was pleased when one of our former site managers required each of our site leadership team members (department managers) to go through the formal 3 day internal auditor training and participate on at least one internal audit per year. Too bad his time at the helm lasted only a couple years before he moved on to another site.
 
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