As an international standard, ISO 9001 is the main reference in quality standardization to ensure that the company's business processes meet globally recognized quality requirements.
To comply with this standard, companies need to perform internal audit ISO regularly. Without these audits, nonconformities in business processes can occur resulting in the potential for ISO certification revocation.
This condition will certainly negatively affect the credibility of the company, reduce customer confidence, and weaken competitiveness in the market.
So, what exactly is an ISO internal audit and what is its implementation mechanism? Find the answer in the following review!
What is ISO Internal Audit?
ISO internal Audit is the process of obtaining audit evidence and objectively evaluating the extent to which ISO standards have been systematically, independently, and documented.
Results audit internal ISO provides an objective evaluation of the company's compliance with applicable regulations. The process will also provide guidance on corrective action if needed.
Internal Audit conducted independently by the company to review whether the system quality management the company has been implemented properly and correctly.
Despite challenges such as negative perceptions of internal auditors and falsification of data by department members, ISO internal audits should still be considered an effective mechanism for continuous improvement.
Purpose of ISO Internal Audit
The implementation of ISO internal audit has several objectives to be achieved, namely.
- Evaluate compliance with the company's quality management standards.
- Analyze the effectiveness of the quality management system that has been implemented.
- Identify areas that can be improved in the company.
- Check the completeness of the file of the results of business processes in each department.
- Improve the quality of the company's operations to obtain competitive advantages.
- Meet customer expectations to increase their loyalty.
- Comply with applicable regulatory standards.
Jenis-jenis Audit Internal ISO
There are three types of internal audits.
- System Audit: System Audit aims to assess the overall quality management system of the company. This type of Audit focuses on evaluating whether planning activities and requirements to ensure that all clauses have been implemented.
- Process Audit: This Audit is carried out to analyze the processes in the management system, ensuring that the processes are running properly and achieving the desired results. Process audits also identify opportunities for improvement and necessary corrective actions, and are more focused on specific, high-risk processes.
- Product Audit: This Audit involves verifying the conformity of products at various stages, such as design, production and delivery. The goal is to ensure that the product meets the established requirements, such as dimensions, functionality and packaging, according to a predetermined frequency.
Requirements for the implementation of a good ISO Internal Audit
To get good internal audit results so that energy is not wasted, there are 3 criteria that must be met in the process, namely.
1. Systematically scheduled
Internal audits must be well planned and carried out periodically according to a predetermined schedule.
The company must support this process by providing adequate resources, including a team of auditors, the time and budget necessary for its implementation.
2. Be Independent
Audit conducted objectively and free from conflicts of interest, so that auditor. have no direct responsibility for the systems, processes, or products being audited.
Auditor independence is important to maintain fairness and avoid bias. The company has the right to determine whether an individual is fit to be an auditor.
Usually, there are several requirements that must be met such as various training and certification processes.
3. Well documented
The audit process must document the evidence required to demonstrate compliance with applicable standards.
This evidence can be observations, measurement results, tests, or any other relevant and measurable means.
ISO Internal Audit implementation steps
For those of you who want to conduct an internal audit, the following are the steps for its implementation.
1. Planning Audit Schedule
With good scheduling, each department will understand that these activities are important to encourage future improvements in the company, not to find fault.
In addition, related parties also have the opportunity to prepare and improve existing processes before the audit is carried out.
The frequency of the audit depends on the needs of the company, but it is generally carried out once a year.
There are also companies that usually schedule audits every three months (quarter) or every six months (semester).
2. Plan The Audit Process
ISO internal audit process involves not only auditor team, but also auditee (object of audit), so that communication in the planning becomes crucial.
This is where good collaboration between the two parties is needed so that the audit can be carried out optimally.
3. Menguasai Ms. Office
At this stage, the audit process begins with a meeting between the auditor and the auditee.
The Auditor will collect the data necessary for the audit through various methods, such as interviews, direct observation, as well as reviewing related documents and other sources.
4. Reporting Audit Findings
The fourth step is to submit the results of iso 9001 internal audit
Audit findings should be immediately informed directly to the auditee so that they know the aspects that are not appropriate and can make improvements based on auditor suggestions.
After that, the auditor will prepare a formal report containing the findings of the audit process.
5. Implement Improvement Recommendations
The final step is to ensure that the improvement recommendations are implemented by the relevant departments.
This is a key step in iso internal audit to improve the quality of business processes.
If all the steps are done well, the audit need not be a source of concern for the company.
Examples Of Internal Audit Questions
For those of you who want to carry out an internal audit in your company, we present examples of questions that can be used as a reference.
- What are your roles and responsibilities in the quality management process?
- What training is provided to new employees to ensure they understand quality standards?
- What measures are taken to guarantee that the products produced meet the specified specifications?
- Do you note any pattern of non-conformance on the product? If so, what steps are being taken to address it?
- To what extent do employees understand the company's quality-related policies and objectives?
- How has the number of complaints from customers developed over time?
- What tools or methods do you use to analyze the causes of the complaints received?
- How are the results of improvements and achievements conveyed to all employees?
Read Also: Important role of company CEO
Conclusion
ISO internal audits are an important process to ensure that a company meets globally recognized quality requirements.
Through this audit, the company can evaluate compliance with quality management standards and identify areas that require improvement.
With the implementation of planned and independent audits, internal audits can be an effective tool to support continuous improvement in the company's business processes.
To support your company's internal audit process, involve Audithink's Comprehensive Features in achieving the success of your quality management system.
We provide internal audit software that has been relied upon by various companies in various sectors to support audit Management in their internal systems. Contact now!
