WHERE do you find your internal auditors?

You're on to something

I think you're right Claes, this is the way we are going. I believe you'll see more benefits under the process approach by conducting "audits" in this manner. We have named them "First Time Quality Teams" and they are (I hate to say it!) empowered by the Quality Council (did someone say bingo!!!). It becomes more of a hands on approach than the inteview audit. All findings, suggested corrections or changes go through the council and through my department. The union and managers have been very cooperative with the teams. It works here.

Welcome to the deep end!

We have an Internal Auditor pool consisting of about 16 people. They are from multiple departments with different skills and different "everyday" jobs.

Our Senior Management which consists of 8...no 7...ermm...6 people now has graciously donated 2 members to assist in the Internal Audit process.

QA, well, hey it's part of our job.

QC, only for the days crew. The technicians, while they would love to participate (at least, some of them), unfortunately are on a rotating shift schedule which makes planning, prepping and conducting an audit sheer torture for the team.

All process engineers are required to be auditors.

All supervisor trainees are required to be auditors until they become full-fledged supervisors (1-3 years training programme). A great idea! They learn about other aspects of the business outside of their supervisory role AND about the importance and role of the QMS!

Our executive assistant is an auditor. Our EMS rep is an auditor, too, for the QMS.

Out of the pool of 16, 4 of us are "qualified" or "competent" (pick whichever word you prefer...or even both) to audit both the QMS and the EMS.

Within our pool, there are 4 potential auditor designations. "Traineee" (affectionately dubbed "slugs"). "Team" (fully qualified auditor but just hasn't quite grasped some of the subtlties of auditing). "Lead" (qualified and actually has a personality when auditing). "Retired" (unable to meeting auditing obligations due to actual retirement, promotion, shiftwork, etc.).

Training is consistent and in-house. I have developed a training module so that all auditors are taught the same material, the same way. Case studies and exercises are industry specific, so when they leave the course, "slugs" are aware of ISO and how it applies to the steel-making process.

RCBeyette said:

All supervisor trainees are required to be auditors until they become full-fledged supervisors (1-3 years training programme). A great idea! They learn about other aspects of the business outside of their supervisory role AND about the importance and role of the QMS!

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That is a good idea!!

We are about 65 employees, approx 50 machinists/operators and 15 "overhead". Our Office Manager (who is CFO) and our accounts receivable person (who is also our document administrator) audit product realization and support processes. Then we have an I.D. Grinder and a Ballscrew Assembler who audit our Business Planning and Management Review processes. I do the scheduling and planning, and I audit as needed.

Everywhere

Two sites, Steering Committee with one rep each from Engineering, Operations, Service, Sales, Marketing, IT and HR at each site. During initial registration project meetings the SC figured each rep should have a backup that would get all minutes, agendas and attend SC meetings if the primary could not. Brilliant QE on my staff suggested that we find a list of attributes for good auditors and make sure that the backups fit the bill (as well as the ISO auditor requirements). When the auditor training and intial audits kicked in we had an informed, intelligent and intelligently selected audit team that represented every department. Finance even selected an auditor based on the criteria and donated them to the pool, even though they did not have a steering committee member (it was 9k94). These folks were selected by their peers for having the right stuff and they all knew it. Combined with encouragement that cross-departmental knowledge was good for a career, they were all highly motivated.

Kudos all, fine responses. Our main site has 2800 employees and originally had 20 auditors that successively completed a well known cert L-A course. Since moving into the role that was developed covering all of our four sites, I asked for Plexus training and since have trained hundreds of hours through a variety of modules...front line operators to executives. When I have the opportunity to help guide selection of new auditors, I always get them to be thinking of those persons who are the most loyal to the organization, those who display a desire to see organizational success, followed by having ability to see the big picture as well as being to focus on the smaller bits and pieces. Bright and knowledgeable folks, regardless of degrees or lack thereof work best in a lot of cases. This also helps instill that the QMS is not just another "suit" issue, but rather incorporates the use of people at all levels of the organization. I normally oppose someone selected to go into auditor training who doesn't like the company, his/her co-workers, superiors and/or subordinates and is in general one big pain between the waist and knees. These types will almost never get an auditee to really open up during an internal audit, fearing some kind of reprisal later.

One thing about it, as noted earlier, we auditors have a really big role to fill and getting the entire organization to understand exactly why we audit and getting buy-in throughout the full organization can be a tough nut to crack. Diplomats? Of course! Politicians? You bet! Psychologists? Absolutely!!! Winners? Well, we can be if we conduct ourselves ethically, and professionally, treating the auditee as we ourselves would like to be treated...more later. We can also be Losers, if we fail to achieve the objectives of the audit through wanton disregard of either knowledge of the standard's requirements or abuse of our position and purpose as auditors.

Remember, the real winners and losers in either case just isn't ourselves, but is our organization or our client's organization.

Re: One additional point...

Here is a nice article on improving the effectiveness of IA.

Last night the company I'm working with would have found their internal auditors in a "drinking establishment"

Can we say

I of course was in my hotel room being very nice.

Randy said:

Last night the company I'm working with would have found their internal auditors in a "drinking establishment"

Can we say

I of course was in my hotel room being very nice.

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Randy,

Do you believe they were "competent?" Amazing how one's observation skills change under these conditions. (Re: ISO 19011, clause 7.2 d.)

Stijloor.

Their "competency" has increased dramatically since Monday, and if after hours "work" helps that to happen then who am I to complain

I haven't commented in this thread for a long, long time. I've lost some auditors this year due to promotions to other divisions, etc. I am so proud of my guys, they actually recruited others to take over as auditors so I wouldn't have an auditor shortage. What can I say? I work with some great people.