ISO 9001 Lead Auditor Training

MODULE 8 - Perspective On First, Second and Third Party Audits 

8.4 ISO 9001 Auditor Credibility
A number of points are made here. It is not meant to be an exhaustive treatise on the subject, merely recognition that the auditor is a human being dealing with human beings and that sets the highest qualifications for the would be auditor.
All auditors must be able to develop a rapport with auditees fairly quickly. Their real job is to facilitate improvement. Rarely do they have much real power, so they have to instigate change by other means.

The situation will frequently arise where there is a nonconformity against procedures and the auditor has the answer. As an external auditor, regardless of whether the auditee would find the suggestion useful or not, they are unable to offer it (to avoid consulting). However, as an internal auditor working for the same company and having the same objectives as their colleagues, they are in a position where they can be of help to the company. They should be prepared to throw away their checklist, roll up their sleeves and help. Wouldn’t such an action meet with the approval of the auditee?

The auditee might even tell the auditor some of the other problems they have so that those can be addressed too. That is the kind of openness that the internal auditor must try to encourage as a natural result of their approach to auditing. Of course, the same degree of openness may not always be in the company’s interests where external auditors are concerned.

ISO 9001 Auditor Indenpendence - It should also be recognized that helping out in the above manner will impact on the auditor’s independence and they will be unable to audit the area for the corrected action and perhaps for an extended period of time. A compromise approach may be to facilitate the discussion of corrective action options and leave the decision-making and implementation of the best option to the organization’s management. This will enable auditors to provide value-added service and still maintain their independence as auditors.

The point has been made that the internal auditor and the auditees are working for the same organization. This can be a double edged sword. As an external second party auditor with apparent power in a (small) supplier, auditors can hide some of their less glorious attributes. When they are auditing their own colleagues, they have to be scrupulously fair, hard working, reasonable, objective, polite, and respectful if they are to contribute anything to the company in the long term. It can be summarized as being “professional”, possibly the best accolade for any auditor to be given.

ISO 9001 Audit - Perhaps a part of the latter point, but one that is important enough to merit specific mention, is that of preoccupation with trivia. In external audits, auditees will put up with someone “prying” around their company knowing that they will be gone tomorrow and they won't see them again for a good while. Not so, with the internal auditor. Nothing is more designed to ravage the credibility of auditors and all they represent than the sight of them narrowly and trivially working their way through each department. It’s the best way known to “destroy” the system.
So, the points are made. Internal auditing can provide companies with a valuable tool provided they have at least three characteristics:

Internal Audits
STRONG MANAGEMENT DRIVEN SYSTEM
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FULL UNDERSTANDING OF BENEFITS
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PROFESSIONAL, TRAINED, AND CREDIBLE AUDITORS
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EFFECTIVE AUDITS with VALUE ADDED

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