Internal Audit Issue....No employees left to audit!!

Question

Internal Audit Issue....No employees left to audit!!

diamondcat (Automotive)

(OP)

6 Jan 10 10:36

Hello, I am hoping someone here can give me some insight into how I can handle this situation.

We are an automotive engineering company. Last year we were ISO 9001:2008 certified. At that time we had over 50 employees and we had the following groups:
Management
Sales
Recruiting
Auto Group
Defense Group

So the internal audit and the Conformance audit included all of those groups.
Well, within the past year we have lost most of our business and therefore we have only 5 people left.
HR
IT
Recruiter
General Manager/Sales
Me (Internal auditor/Auto designer/Defense designer)

So my question is, how do I do an internal audit to the Auto or Defense groups when I am the only person left in those groups? There has been work done in those groups since the conformance audit. Can I audit myself? Or should I "train" the IT guy to audit and have him audit me?

Thanks for your help.

MadMango (Mechanical) · Answer 1 · 2010-01-06 10:41:21

With a manpower reduction like that I assume that your processes have changed a bit too, right? I'd probably reveiw your proceedures, change them to how business is being conducted now, then train another Auditor.

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diamondcat (Automotive) · Answer 2 · 2010-01-06 10:45:39

Our processes really haven't changed, we are just not using some of them right now. We hope to get work for those groups and bring people back in the future so I don't think we want to change anything. Plus, since money has been tight I waited too long to do the internal audit and now I need to get it done kind of quick. Our conformance audit is on 2/4!!

KENAT (Mechanical) · Answer 3 · 2010-01-06 11:26:28

My first thought was similar to MMs, to update your internal procedures to be more relevant to your current size/organisation.

If you don't want to do that for the reasons stated then I'd perhaps train up the IT guy as you mention.

Don't suppose you can add an 'emergency' line to your procedures that allow self audit in situations where there are inadequate staff for there to be another trained auditer? Perhaps with a requirement for review bu a non trained auditer or something.

As I recall most of the ISO quality stuff was just about enforcing your own procedures etc so can you adjust them slightly to suit?

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diamondcat (Automotive) · Answer 4 · 2010-01-06 12:56:24

I think our best bet is doing a quick train on the IT guy. Management doesn't want to spend any money on this so messing with the docs at this point would just confuse things. Thanks for the responses.

dbooker630 (Materials) · Answer 5 · 2010-01-07 12:13:52

I agree with training your IT or even your HR and Sales persons as internal auditors. In our company we draft people from other groups to audit the quality system. Still might be a good time to review all of your quality management system resources and rewrite them to your available resources.

diamondcat (Automotive) · Answer 6 · 2010-01-07 12:16:30

I think that is what we will do, the problem is that people usually don't stick around very long. So if we train someone, they are typically gone by the next audit :(

KENAT (Mechanical) · Answer 7 · 2010-01-07 13:05:02

If you really have that high a turnover then I'd be concerned you have other issues and worrying about audits might be the least of your concerns.

Sticking to the audits, if it really is a serious problem, then changing your procedures to allow self audits if required might be worth considering. I don't know if ISO says anything about that though.

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Envichap (Civil/Environmental) · Answer 8 · 2010-02-05 04:16:51

Just a little hint:
Internal audits don't have to be carried out by internal staff at all times. A useful way is to cooperate with colleagues in other (similar) companies who are trained in auditing. So it's a good strategy to cross-audit your companies. In the end it's also a welcomed training place if you audit not only your own organization, but another one from time to time.
If you have several colleagues close to you in different organizations, why not set up a pool for internal cross-auditing...

[url=http://www.envirocip.com]envirocip.com[/url]

MadMango (Mechanical) · Answer 9 · 2010-02-05 08:21:20

Enichap, that's a great suggestion, Star for you.

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Internal Audit Issue....No employees left to audit!!