Internal auditing of internal audit procedures

Hi,

I have received a minor non conformance ( not BRC ) for not having an internal audit of the internal audit procedures.

I see this as involving a senior manager or director who is independant of the quality management system to review the internal audit schedule, completed audits and checking that any corrective actions have been signed off.  The document would include statements such as - Has the internal audit schedule been completed in full?,have any non conformances been identified? and has corrective action been issued and signed off?

Am I on the right track or does it mean something completely different. Help much appreciated.

Thanks

Hi jacq,

It may relate to the actual   (Welsh?) Standard ??

Charles,

The clause in the standard states

'' The Company shall have an internal audit system in place in relation to all systems and procedures, which impact upon product safety, legality and quality''

There are a further 5 clauses relating to frequency, risk, and corrective actions.

Would I be correct if I used the wording for each clause but added, for example ''Does the Comapany have an internal audit system in place... Has the internal audit frequency been programmed in relation to the risks...

Thanks

Hi Jacq,

That's what we do (although I audit the internal audit as I am independent from the process - it's managed by a colleague). The questions are: do we do it, does it cover the complete standard, are non-conformances handled correctly and closed off and are the auditors suitably trained?

It works for us.

Hi Jacq,

 

That's what we do (although I audit the internal audit as I am independent from the process - it's managed by a colleague). The questions are: do we do it, does it cover the complete standard, are non-conformances handled correctly and closed off and are the auditors suitably trained?

 

It works for us.

Hi Jacq,

I agree with BrunnyJim, even though you said you're not BRC, the BRC system could work for you. The internal audit for internal audits is just to make sure that your internal audits are covering everything they need to cover, and that corrective actions are implemented (and in a timely fashion). Also, it is very important as BrunnyJim says, that internal auditors be trained.

I think you could argue that the document you want to create can serve as an internal audit; being that the person doing the audit is independent of the process, and that person is checking the schedule and verifying corrective actions are in place. It seems to depend on the auditor and what they feel a valid assessment would be. Or you can just create an internal audit document the same as you would for other items in the Quality and Food Safety System, and have this person do an overall assessment of your internal audits.

We, like BrunnyJim, have an internal auditor do an overall assessment of the internal audit program. I keep up with closing out the internal audits and making sure corrective actions (including Root Cause Analysis, Proposed Action Plan, and Timescale) are implemented in a timely manner.

QAGB

Thank you BrummyJim and QAGB.

We have trained auditors with audits carried out to schedule and entered on a spread sheet which shows if any non conformances were raised and when they are actioned and signed off.

So I would have someone other than me to audit the clause while I carry out the audit, eg I document customer complaints, corrective action and trend analysis and then would, as QAGB says, carry out an audit of the customer complaint section detailed in the standard, to ensure that I had covered everything in my audit. Hope that makes sense.

Thanks again.

Hi jacq,

I have enclosed an extracted/edited dialog (post / comment) relating to auditing for iso 9001. This concludes with  an external auditor's opinion on an analogous requirement for iso9001.

I have included the preamble mainly for context. You can initially skip down to the green highlighted paragraph about 2/3 down.

This may / may not be relevant to yr own case depending on yr own specific clauses. It looked fairly generic to me but StandardX's opinions may differ. :smile:

internal audit of an internal audit-2.pdf   216.52KB   219 downloads

Thank you Charles, BrummyJim and QAGB, I think I'm now heading in the right direction.