What is a Desk Audit? What should I expect? A Document Review?

[Sue]

Hi Everyone,

I'm back again with another question, which perhaps I should be addressing to the Auditing Forum.

We were scheduled for a Preassessment Audit this Friday, but the auditor suggested we consider it a Desk Audit instead and schedule the preassessment at a later date.

My question is what to expect - what does a "desk" audit entail and who besides the Management Representative should be involved.

We are a small (50 employees) manufacturing company going for ISO/TS with no prior certification.

Sue

 

[Sporty]

A desk audit is the auditor sitting at a desk and going through your manual and ensuring all your shalls are addressed.
I'm not sure why your auditor would change from a preassessment to a desk audit.

I did a "self" desk audit, and filled in a checklist with applicable paragraph numbers and sent it to my registrar along with the manual. They completed the desk audit prior to visiting our plant and came shortly after to do our pre-assessment.

 

[paulnguyen]

Hi,

IMO, the technical term for the "desk audit", "desk review", "desk study", etc..." is the "document review" which is mentioned as time T1 prior to the optional Pre-audit, as described in the Rules For Achieving IATF Recognition, 1st Ed, March 19, 2002.

Paul N.

 

[Sue]

Sporty said:

A desk audit is the auditor sitting at a desk and going through your manual and ensuring all your shalls are addressed.

I thought with (ISO/TS 16949:2002) that the audit was to be process orientated not a checklist of the shalls.

We arranged our procedures in sections according to the 3 main process groups of Realization, Support and Business - to audit by the shalls will definitely be a challenge! We also rewrote the QMS manual in this format at the auditor's suggestion.

Well Friday is "D" day so I guess "time will tell".

 

[Sam]

"I thought with (ISO/TS 16949:2002) that the audit was to be process orientated not a checklist of the shalls."

Sue,
Apparently "They" forgot to give the registrars/auditor trainers the same info that we were given at the rollout meetings.
At the auditor qualification class the attempt was made to present auditing the process, however, it always came back to meeting the "shall" addressed by the specification.
And how can you expect an auditor to write a nonconformance if there are no "shalls". Process inputs and process needs vary so greatly that an auditor would need to be a specialist in the commodity being audited. We know that is not the case. It's the same old parody, TS, QS ISO, Mil-Q-9858 played by a different band.