QUALITY MANAGEMENT

2. Creating an Audit Plan

As with most things in life, preparation is the key. Auditing is no exception to this rule, and it is very important that the auditor has a clear understanding of what they are auditing. This phase is also useful for the department under review as the auditor can provide information about the intent behind the audit, the scope of the inspection and request the necessary documents before arriving to conduct the audit inspection.  At this stage, it may also be helpful for the auditor to review previous audits by the same department to determine if previous issues need to be followed up.

3. Conducting Audits and Reporting

After a schedule has been settled upon, and a plan set around what the audit sets out to do, it’s now time to conduct the audit. This progression can take a few different methods, for example, documentation reviews, meetings, interviews, and, conversing with employees, audit and investigation of records. The objective of this stage is to find and record any discoveries that show the process is working in the manner it is set out to, and really produces the desired outcomes.

If the inspector is going to use the questioning technique, they should use appropriate questions. This implies the inquiries should be:

‘Open’ to acquire data (start with – “who”, “what”, “how, “why”).

‘Closed’ to get affirmation (replied by “yes” or “no”).

“Clarifying” when you feel you may have misunderstood (examples include “show me…”, “Can I see…”, “let’s take a look at…”).

Another helpful suggestion for the auditor is to avoid regurgitating questions from a checklist. For an audit to be successful, people need to be open to the auditor. Furthermore, they encourage everyone to think deeply about their work and the world around them. These kinds of feedback are much more difficult to achieve via checklists (which were initially designed to be simple memory joggers). Checklists are not relevant here. Instead, ask questions, listen to evidence, and record it. Then review the findings against the procedure.

4. Report findings

In order to share the main findings of the audit between the auditor and the auditee, a meeting will need to take place after the audit is completed. The goal is to ensure that there are no delays in communicating the findings between the parties. Reports here will be concerned with identifying any areas for improvement, and auditors may also want to know if any areas are excelling. Formal reports should identify the key findings. auditees can then go back any time and see what modifications they might be able to make on the hard copy.

Including pictures in your audit could also be beneficial. It’s true that ‘a picture is worth a thousand words’, so this also applies to internal audits. You will save more time by taking a quick photo of what you have observed instead of explaining it in detail. Then you can write a short description of what the photo shows .

This report should include the following main findings:

objective, scope, references, and audit team for the audit, audit schedule, people interviewed, documentation reviewed, equipment and resources inspected, positive and negative findings that were found in the audit.

If there are deficiencies.
The report should also be discussed with the auditee to ensure they accept the findings of the report. This doesn’t imply that the auditee is glad to “acknowledge” what’s in your report. It implies that they comprehend and acknowledge the legitimacy of the true proof that you’ve collected during the review. It’s not in every case simple for the board to hear input about framework disappointments, dissatisfactions and inadequacies. However, it is extremely significant as a SHEQ is proficient.

5. Following Up

This stage is crucial as it will assist with showing whether upgrades have really been made or not. When writing about what should be changed or transformed, have at the top of the priority list a time frame that would be reasonable for a development. There is no real reason for revealing your discoveries to the auditee if you are not going to check whether they have listened and taken action. When thinking about what should be followed up, the auditor should assess whether what they found was in accordance with what was generally anticipated, and if not what action should be taken.