Internal Quality Audits: What They Are and How To …

1 Internal Quality Audits: What They Are and How To carry Them OutA024XX10296 ( Internal Quality Audits) Issue 231 July 1996 The National Computing Centre LimitedOxford House, Oxford RoadManchester M1 7 EDUKI nternationalTelephone:0161 228 6333(+44) 161 228 6333 Fax:0161 236 9877(+44) 161 236 9877iiInternal Quality Audits: What They Are and How To carry Them OutA024XX10296 ( Internal Quality Audits) Issue 2 The National Computing Centre Limited 1996 All Rights copyright in this document is vested in The National Computing Centre Limited. The document must not be reproduced, by any means in whole or in part or used for manufacturing purposes, except with the prior written permission of The National Computing Centre Limited and then only on condition that this notice is included in any such contained in this document is believed to be accurate at the time of publication but no liability whatsoever can be accepted by The National Computing Centre Limited arising out of any use made of this ( Internal Quality Audits) Issue 2 Internal Quality Audits: What They Are and How To carry Them OutiiiIssue RecordIssueDateComment1 Draft issue to new clientivInternal Quality Audits: What They Are and How To carry Them Out A024XX10296 ( Internal Quality Audits) Issue 2A024XX10296 ( Internal Quality Audits) Issue 2 Internal Quality Audits: What They Are and How To carry Them OutvContents1 Introduction.

2 12 Why audit ? .. 23 The Purpose of an Internal audit System .. 34 What is an audit ? .. 45 Types of audit .. Internal and External Audits .. The Basic Approaches to Auditing .. 56 The Structure of an Internal audit System.. 67 Organising Audits: Management .. 78 Auditors .. 89 A Short Exercise in Auditing ..910 Questions, Questions - Interviewing Techniques for Auditing .. Examples of Open Questions.. Examples of Closed Questions .. When to Use Open and Closed Questions .. 1011 Practical Auditing.. Personality Traits .. Interviewing Style .. 1612 Scheduling Audits .. When do You carry Out Audits?..1813 How to carry Out an audit : An Overview .. 1914 audit Results .. 2015 The Missing Question and the Forbidden Word .. The Missing Question .. The Forbidden Word .. 2116 Management Review Function.. 22 ContentsviInternal Quality Audits: What They Are and How To carry Them OutA024XX10296 ( Internal Quality Audits) Issue 217 Corrective Action System.

3 2318 Helpful Forms .. The Internal Quality audit Register .. The Internal Quality audit Checklist Proforma.. The Internal Quality audit /Non-conformance Report.. Internal Quality audit Notes .. 2619 Preparing an audit : An Exercise .. Auditing a Consultancy Assignment .. 2720 A Step by Step Approach to Carrying Out an audit .. Introduction .. The Scope of an Internal Quality audit System (IQAS) .. Useful Documents .. How to Manage and carry Out an Internal Quality audit .. Organising Internal Quality Audits .. Preparing for an audit - Creating the audit Checklist .. Preparing for the Internal Quality audit : Pre- audit Meetings .. Conducting the audit .. Completing the audit .. Closing the audit : The Follow-Up audit .. Completion of Corrective Actions .. Handling Disputes .. Executive audit Report .. 3021 Conclusion .. 32 IntroductionA024XX10296 ( Internal Quality Audits) Issue 2 Internal Quality Audits: What They Are and How To carry Them Out11 IntroductionThese notes support a one-day course to train Internal Quality auditors.

4 The course does not assume that Internal Quality audits will be part of an ISO 9000-based Quality system. It does, however, use the ISO model as a point of course describes the elements of a typical Internal Quality audit System (IQAS). The details of the design of the system will depend on the way that the Quality management system has been implemented and the company itself. The form of the system is not mandated within the ISO 9000 standard but the standard does state requirements for its course assumes that delegates have some awareness of Quality systems and Quality management in purpose of the course is to: Make delegates aware of the need for IQAS Describe a practical IQAS Train people to become Internal auditorsThe intention is that delegates should leave the course feeling that they understand the basics of the IQAS including why it s there, how to construct one and who has what responsibility.

5 Auditors will also get to understand the audit management process, so that they will get a better idea of how their individual audits come together to form a picture of how the entire organisation is , during the day we will look at: Why audit ? What is an audit ? Who do you audit ? When do you audit ? Where do you audit ? How do you audit ?We will look at the theory and have a go at the Quality Audits: What They Are and How To carry Them Out2 Internal Quality Audits: What They Are and How To carry Them OutA024XX10296 ( Internal Quality Audits) Issue 22 Why audit ? Quality systems control the mechanisms that develop and deliver products and services to customers. If we rely on customers to tell us of the effectiveness of the controls, it may be too late and we will not retain their custom. An effective Quality system will contain constant checks, tests and systems for corrective action (because things will go wrong ).

6 However, all of these need the support of independent checks of the organization from within the organization. These independent checks are Internal Quality need to open our Quality systems to audit or they become closed system. As all those physicists amongst us will immediately point out, closed systems tend to chaos. Take the tea cup! All nicely focused at one point. If it is dropped, pieces are scattered. Chaos ensues. If this happens continuously, we can loose our entire tea set. If it happens unbeknown to us, someone is going to get a shock when they look in the sideboard! Audits are a routine activity to avoid nasty surprises at critical short cuts are made with good intentions and sometimes you can keep all the cups on the tray when you run. However, thought out and reviewed procedures are put in place to make sure that we carry out tasks in ways most likely to succeed with as few risks of failure as possible.

7 Such as, limiting the number of cups on a tray or how fast you move with the make sure that we don t overload the tray. Audits are needed to find not only the disasters (often all too obvious) but also the frequency of near disasters (which are usually covered up). We need audits to remind us of the correct way of doing things and to make sure that problems are Purpose of an Internal audit SystemA024XX10296 ( Internal Quality Audits) Issue 2 Internal Quality Audits: What They Are and How To carry Them Out33 The Purpose of an Internal audit SystemThe purpose of the IQAS is to monitor conformance, to both the documented Quality system in operation and subsequently, to the requirements of any standard upon which the system is IQAS provides the mechanism for discovering non-conformances within the operating Quality management system by: Ensuring that appropriate corrective action is planned Ensuring that appropriate corrective action is implemented Monitoring the effectiveness of the actionInternal audit records form part of the Quality Records maintained by the organization.

8 From these records trends, critical problems, persistent problems and so on, can be identified. Third party assessors (also probably second party assessors) will examine these records. They will be looking to satisfy themselves that the non-conformances identified during Internal audits have been cleared and that the Internal audits themselves are operating Quality Audits: What They Are and How To carry Them Out4 Internal Quality Audits: What They Are and How To carry Them OutA024XX10296 ( Internal Quality Audits) Issue 24 What is an audit ?The Internal audit function is the mechanism through which the operation of the Quality management system is formally monitored and conformance with the documented Quality system is assured. Audits are carried out by auditors selected from within the company but who are independent of the area, function or procedure being audits are the mechanism through which information about the effectiveness of the Quality system is gathered.

9 The purpose of the audit function is to verify, or otherwise, conformance of practice with the documented Quality system and with the requirements of the often this is seen as a policing function, so great care must be taken to promote the audit as a positive contribution to improvement. The nature of audits, of course, makes this difficult - recording non-conformances appears to be quite negative. However, where an effort is made to note positive aspects the overhead in time seems to be unsupportable. In other words, it is probably not practical (although it is not impossible) to introduce positive people do positively welcome audits as a rare opportunity to show off their day-to-day activities and have their successes visibly reported to of AuditA024XX10296 ( Internal Quality Audits) Issue 2 Internal Quality Audits: What They Are and How To carry Them Out55 Types of Internal and External AuditsThere are three different types of audit : First party audits Second party audits Third party auditsThe first party audit is the mechanism by which the company monitors adherence to the documented Quality system.

10 It carries little weight externally, except as confirmation that the Quality management system is operating correctly. Its benefit is to the company. It provides objective data used to highlight the potential for improvement and a basis on which to plan improvements. The audits are carried out by people who understand both the company and its party audits are usually performed by the customer, or a representative of the customer, when the customer needs to establish confidence in the processes contributing to a particular product or party audits are performed by agencies, independent of both customer and supplier, recognised as competent to assess Quality management systems against a standard. In recognition of meeting the requirements of the standard, the supplier will achieve certification to the standard. Certification has the benefit of reducing, if not completely removing, the need to perform second party The Basic Approaches to AuditingWithin these three types of audits, there are two approaches that auditors can take: Vertical auditing Horizontal auditingVertical audits look, in depth, at a particular function or department.