How to make internal audits quick and less onerous?

I need a method to be able to use to perform internal audits on site that cover all aspects of our business that is not time or resource demanding. We currently audit against individual SOP's - we have over 200 of these now, and as you can imagine we are unable to audit against every single one of these on an annual basis. The SOPs cover the whole of the business from production to quality, maintenance, health and safety and finance.

Can anyone suggest how I may go about changing our existing auditing method so that we can make it much easier to handle and a much less onerous task to perform. All ideas and suggestions are appreciated. Thanks 

I have set up my internal auditing system to work alongside my GFSI plan, which is BRC.

BRC has 7 sections and each month my internal audit covers one section of the program. Each audit starts with the results of the previous audit, the observations, the corrective actions that were done in reference to that and then we go to the section in question. The major sections are divided into two months and at the end of the year, I have covered every part of the system.

Basically, it helps us stay focused... it gives all involved a deep and thorough understanding of the system and it gets easier and easier to follow.

I am also doing the audits on an app which has all the questions and areas to cover and it makes following the observations and corrective actions simpler. It takes a lot of set up time but once it is up and running, it's a breeze.

I am sure there are many ideas out there to make this process a bit easier to handle, nevertheless depending on the size of your plant, it is a pretty time consuming. 

I need a method to be able to use to perform internal audits on site that cover all aspects of our business that is not time or resource demanding. We currently audit against individual SOP's - we have over 200 of these now, and as you can imagine we are unable to audit against every single one of these on an annual basis. The SOPs cover the whole of the business from production to quality, maintenance, health and safety and finance.

 

Can anyone suggest how I may go about changing our existing auditing method so that we can make it much easier to handle and a much less onerous task to perform. All ideas and suggestions are appreciated. Thanks 

Hi Jo,

IMO the options will rather depend on what the audits are actually for, ie against which standards (if any) ?

IMEX, external auditing is a mix of FS applicable objective(s) / Sherlock Holmes / Body Armour

Hi Charles,

Sorry i meant to say that it is currently for the FSSC 22000 standards that i need to review our internal auditing structure. Further advice or input would be appreciated.

Jo

Hi Charles,

 

Sorry i meant to say that it is currently for the FSSC 22000 standards that i need to review our internal auditing structure. Further advice or input would be appreciated.

 

Jo

I assume this is for Food.

How do you currently split yr audits over the year ?.

Offhand, for example, 200/12 does not seem too onerous ?

Most people split by sections of a FS Standard although ISO's generic nature may make that more subtle compared to one of the more prescriptive varieties like BRC.

Ideally, the audit format should be regularly updated via "risk" (eg findings)  but i don't recall if iso specifically demand this to be documented.

 

 

I am also doing the audits on an app which has all the questions and areas to cover and it makes following the observations and corrective actions simpler. It takes a lot of set up time but once it is up and running, it's a breeze.

 

Hi,

Could you please advise which application you are using? 

Thanks. 

Similarly to Sussy I audit against the standard rather than against my SOPs as part of this standard audit, I do the following:

• Check my procedures, policies and SOPs are compliant with the standard (for this I may only check a sample, e.g. a cleaning SOP and a hygiene and housekeeping policy for one section)
• I then check the procedures in the factory match the standard requirements AND match my internal SOPs, policies and procedures

It would not be practical to check every SOP in a year but if you do find a non conformity in your audit, it may indicate that other SOPs may have the same issue so if you do go for a sampling approach, as most of us do, then you need to address the resolution may need to be wider than the single SOP if a problem is found.  It's like if you found a problem with one PPM, you should then assume there may be other problems with other PPMs etc.  Likewise when doing a calibration audit, you may check 4 different pieces of equipment and if you found a problem with one, as part of the root cause analysis and corrective action, the person doing that may have to check all of the other items etc.

I have set up my internal auditing system to work alongside my GFSI plan, which is BRC.

 

BRC has 7 sections and each month my internal audit covers one section of the program. Each audit starts with the results of the previous audit, the observations, the corrective actions that were done in reference to that and then we go to the section in question. The major sections are divided into two months and at the end of the year, I have covered every part of the system.

 

Basically, it helps us stay focused... it gives all involved a deep and thorough understanding of the system and it gets easier and easier to follow.

 

I am also doing the audits on an app which has all the questions and areas to cover and it makes following the observations and corrective actions simpler. It takes a lot of set up time but once it is up and running, it's a breeze.

 

I am sure there are many ideas out there to make this process a bit easier to handle, nevertheless depending on the size of your plant, it is a pretty time consuming. 

What app do you use?

^{We use iauditor that helps with our internal inspections as well as our internal audits.  A lot of work up front to get the templates in.  Once that is set up, it helps track non conformances, corrective actions, and completion}