How to conduct internal audit as per ISO 9001:2015 clause 9.2.
The second part of 9 clause require organization to conduct
internal audits at plan intervals.
- The purpose of internal audit.
1- provide information if the quality management system is
fulfilling the requirements of the company for quality management system.
2- - provide
information if the quality management system is fulfilling the requirements of ISO
9001 standard.
3- To improve the quality management system.
This is important because without internal audit, you would
not have a systematic and objectives overview what is really happening in your
quality management system.
- The required steps to conduct effective internal audit.
In order to conduct effective internal audit, the below
steps should be followed:
- Establish internal audit programme.
The standard required organizations to establish the
internal audit programme which basically an annual schedule of internal audits.
- Determine scope of internal audit.
The next step is determining the scope of the internal
audit, which processes, and departments will be audited during the audit. For example,
in a case of a bigger company, some of the processes will be audited in July
and the rest in October. In case of a small company, it is more likely to have
a whole company will be included in the audit scope.
You should also document the scope of the audit through the
audit programme.
- Determine the internal audit criteria.
Before internal audit start, it is important to determine
the audit criteria against which the audit will performed. This can be ISO 9001
standard itself, the legal requirements, contractual obligations, or requirements
from other interest party.
- Selection of the auditor.
Then the company must select auditors to conduct the audit. The
most important thing here to avoid conflict of interest. Meaning that the
auditor can not audit his own work, this is especially challenging in small
companies with limited human resources.
The auditor must be familiar with the ISO 9001 standard
and auditing techniques, which usually achieved by sending the auditor to
internal auditor course.
- Create internal audit plan.
Now the plan for internal audit can be created and although not
mandatory document, it can be useful because with documented pan you will avoid
missing something out and easier to communicate the information about the audit
to relevant people.
When you arrange the audit plan, you need to determine the
amount of time you will spend in each process or department, what people and
roles you want to interview and who will conduct the audit.
The audit can be conduct by the single auditor or by the
audit team.
- Audit results.
the results of the audit must be presented to the top
management in a form of documented internal audit report.
This report usually includes general observations of the
auditor, spotted nonconformities, good practices, and recommendations.