What is your org's auditing structure? Inquiring minds want to know!

M

Mary McD

#1
I have been asked by a client of mine what the "typical" auditing organization looks like for a large multinational service/software organization. I can't find info on the web, and I'm hoping that you can help me out with some basic questions, like:
How many auditors/organization (so I can calculate auditors/employee)
are the full time, part time, or full time equivalents?
are they centralized (who do they report to) or decentralized (ditto)
what are the benefits and drawbacks of your system? What's working well and what has holes?

Any info you can share with me would be most helpful as I try and craft an answer... please feel free to contact me offlist at processimprovement[at]gmail.com if you'd rather not post here... thanks!
 
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D

Duke Okes

#2
There is not "one best" approach. It depends on the size of the organization, the degree to which it is regulated and/or has high risk processes, resources available, degree of desired employee involvement in auditing, overall goals of the audit program, ...

I've worked with organizations that train a different group of auditors every year or so (representing a diagonal slice of the organization) to ones with a single auditor who conducts all the audits. Each has advantages and disadvantages.

Best approach for a particular situation is likely to be one that management will support and that will generate useful information from the audit process.
 
R
#3
We have about 200 employees. Our main auditors are the QA Mgr., myself-QA Super, and a QA Tech. Our Dept. Supers also get in on the fun doing audits on their processes though these are not counted as ISO Audits. We decide what areas need auditing, do a Primary audit and then go back with secondary audits until we are satisfied any problems found have been fixed. Still working on the best way to handle this but it does work on the problems needing fixed much faster than scheduled audits everywhere. Much more payback!
 
B

Benjamin28

#4
Speaking for a small company of 55 individuals we currently have 4 full time auditors. 2 Product auditors and 2 system/process auditors. The product audit is a detective system whereas the other two are focused on providing a preventive system.

All auditors report to the Quality Manager (who is 1 of the system/process auditors as well) who in turn reports to the highest level of management.

Both aspects of this system do work well, however I am of a mindset that the preventive focus is of more value and, results, if acted upon correctly, have more overall impact and value.

Due to the nature of the beast it is required that we have a product auditing (detective system) in place in our auditing department. However, the manner in which this is applied is ineffective at providing lasting improvements. With that in mind, we trend the CA root causes issued from product audits, and that data becomes a contributor to our system/process auditing schedule.

You could almost consider it two departments, Quality Control, and Quality Assurance. Information attained from QC is used to catch issues before they reach the client and to help steer QA to the processes which need the most focus. If it were not required I would drop QC activities and place all focus on process/system management/improvement as this activity tends to provide better, lasting, results.
 
M

Martijn

#6
350 employees in 10 countries, ISO 9001 only, we have an auditteam of 6 (local quality representatives) that do the audits (they visit other countries than their own), they (functionally) report to me (quality manager Europe) about this. The audit team is a part time function, 2 days of training per year + 5 audit days max.
 
K

Koala

#7
We have 175 employees and 9 Auditors.
Quality Manager.
Assistant Plant Manager.
Metallurgical Manager.
Purchasing Manager.
Maintenance Technician.
Production Control.
Vice President of Operations.
Training Supervisor.
Inside Sales.

None of these positions report to the Quality Manager. By having Auditors from different departments, it is very easy to ensure nobody audits their own work.
 

GStough

Staff member
Super Moderator
#8
We have 4 auditors from different areas:

1 is from the production lab - lab technician (but possesses many yrs knowledge of all manufacturing processes)
1 is from sewing department (Sewing Supervisor)
1 is brand new to auditing and is from shipping (Shipping Supervisor)
1 is the lead auditor (yours truly) and I'm in the QA department, Quality Systems Specialist.

Our company is approximately 200-250 at this facility.

The internal auditing process is a QA/RA function, but the auditors come from various areas of the company so that no one audits her own work. (yes, we're all women! ;) )
 

Crusader

Trusted Information Resource
#9
I have been asked by a client of mine what the "typical" auditing organization looks like for a large multinational service/software organization. I can't find info on the web, and I'm hoping that you can help me out with some basic questions, like:
How many auditors/organization (so I can calculate auditors/employee)
are the full time, part time, or full time equivalents?
are they centralized (who do they report to) or decentralized (ditto)
what are the benefits and drawbacks of your system? What's working well and what has holes?

Any info you can share with me would be most helpful as I try and craft an answer... please feel free to contact me offlist at processimprovement[at]gmail.com if you'd rather not post here... thanks!
We're not a large mutinational service/software org but here is our info:
4 Divisions: 7 auditors / 550 people
1 Division: 5 auditors / 180 people
1 future division....will use the audit team from the "1 Division" above.

All auditors work in the company elsewhere - I "borrow" these full-time people away from their normal jobs to perform audits. So, they don't report to me at all. I do not have a dedicated audit team. I am the lead auditor.

Drawbacks? None that I can think of.

What's working well? Hmmm, my structure works for me just fine. My auditors are from various departments. I rotate my auditors so it does not put a strain on their normal job junction.

Holes in the system? None that I know of.

Hope this helps. :bigwave:
 
F

fireonce

#10
We have approx. 3000 employees, and 20 auditors.
Quality Mgr. and 5 quality staffs ( including 1 system staff)
Other departments Mgr.
 
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