ISO 9001:2015 Internal Audit Toolkit: Tool 1

What are the Major Tools you should know? 

Internal Audit and its KPI –TOOL ONE: With this tool provided by ISO, the intent is to identify two kinds of gaps on a continuous basis – whether the QMS is being followed as defined (process compliance) and whether the QMS processes are achieving their identified KPI (process effectiveness). One has to remember that Internal audit though may have some objective as outlined but it itself is a process and should have its own Key performance Indicators. The number of key performance indicators can vary from organization to organization depending on the maturity of the organization’s management system. Some of the possible type of KPI for Internal audit process may be

  • Number of non conformities
  • Closure of non conformities
  • Timeliness of the audit

The above KPI are very generic in nature and may not give any INSIGHT on the quality of Internal audit process which is dependent upon the competency of the auditor- (auditing competency and process knowledge), Independence , tools used (checklist) and Time spent(very critical)

So one can increase the KPI for internal audit process to

  • OFI/Non conformities recorded per unit time spent
  • Time spent per process vs planned time per process
  • Process Effectiveness and Realization chart for each process
  • Evaluative comments on the process documentation (adequacy, simplicity etc)

As a programmer of the internal audit – the person responsible should focus on selection of auditor with respect to individual process taking into consideration, Competence, independence.

It is a common feature that the auditing and process knowledge competence might not be available within a small organization – Here creativity and resourcefulness of the program manager is the key constraint more than the financial constraint. Internal audit process is easily outsourced; however it should not be done with a compromise on auditor’s process and auditing competence.

Eurotech Training division provides open house and In-house courses for internal auditor for ISO 9001:2015 which focuses on developing checklist and giving a live experience of auditing with the developed checklist in their own factory/workshop. For open house ISO 9001:2015 internal auditor course check out our calendar