Step 7 Internal Audits
It is necessary to demonstrate that your ISO 9001 Quality System is effective. During an internal audit you will compare your quality system against the requirements of the standard. You will select a group of internal auditors from within your company to perform the audits.
You will begin once your system has been implemented and will need to perform internal audits before your Registration Audit. The Registration Audit is the audit which is performed by the Registrar who will issue your ISO 9001 Certificate upon successful completion of that audit.
Before your Registration Audit you will need to use and improve your system for 2-3 months. Read our blog post about using and improving your system for more details.
Choose your audit team
You will want to have a number
of trained internal auditors for your audit program. You will be
auditing each area of your facility once or twice a year, with an audit
team of 1 to 4 auditors depending on the size of the area. You will
want to have enough auditors trained so that the auditors will not
audit their own area, and so that you are not pulling one person away
from their work too often. A general guidance number is 10% of the
total number of employees; a company with 50 employees would train 5
auditors, and company of 100 would train 10. As the number of employees
goes up, the percentage would go down.
Look for employees that
have a strength in investigating issues and that are good
communicators. The better people skills the auditors have, the smoother
your audits will be performed.
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