Here’s How to Prepare for the Audit before ISO Certification

 If you are looking ahead to get your business certified with a top-level standard such as ISO 9001, make sure you are well prepared to pass the final audits. Auditing is a process when some external trained officers will deeply review your management system which is to be certified and will find out problems or issues of noncompliance, if any exist. The purpose of carrying out an audit is to rectify those problems as soon as possible and to make your management system completely prepared for certification. Commonly known as a certification audit, it is an imperative phase in any quality assurance certification and applies to any business, regardless of their industry type or size. 


However, to make your business pass an efficient and comprehensive audit, you need to prepare your organization beforehand. From ensuring involvement of management leaders to maintaining communication with auditors, there are certain things needed to make your business ready for audit. 



Ensure Leadership Participation


Your organization’s top-tier leaders must be involved in audit preparation. Their role is involved at all phases of a certification audit. They should review the quality management system (QMS) internally to make sure that most of standard’s regulations are met. There are hundreds of documents created to formally establish the rules and procedures of a QMS, and it is management’s role to ensure that every written aspect of the document matches with that of the operational QMS. This is required to pass phase one of the audit where auditors will only examine the QMS documents. They will also review it to see if there are any major fallbacks in the QMS compared to the ISO 9001 requirements i.e. perform a gap analysis. A gap analysis can also be performed with assistance from a quality assurance services provider. With it your management leaders can direct the employees to assign resources wherever necessary to make the QMS compliant before the certification audit. 


Corrective Actions Plan


If your management leaders determine any fallbacks, noncompliance issues, or problems in the QMS after reviewing, then they must take responsive measures. In simple words, there is a need for a corrective action plan designed after investigating the root causes of problems in the QMS. The certification body that will conduct the audit never likes to find any issue which has been already identified but has not yet been resolved.  On the contrary, if they find out that you have completely addressed an issue after discovering it, they will be happy with your QMS. They will conclude that your QMS is quite performing well and you are operating it efficiently by addressing any issues with remedial/corrective solutions. 


Train Your Employees


The next big preparation needed for the audit is making your employees aware of it. Carry out a proper training program where you educate employees about the auditing process. This can take a few days to a week. Make sure your quality executives who operate the QMS explain the why’s and what’s of the audit process so that they can instantly respond to auditors when asked about anything in their QMS.  Data analysis reports and performance statistics are crucial observations for auditors which help to determine the effectiveness of QMS, so your quality practitioners must prepare detailed reports and statistics on quality performance over the time after implementation of QMS. 


Managing the Auditors


A key way to pass the certification audit smoothly is to have great communication with the auditors and to be involved completely in the auditing process, regardless of whether your participation is needed or not. Try to take the control of the process by scheduling the audit according to your convenience. Secondly, show your confidence in administration of the QMS by giving them access to every input of the system, policies, records, quality risk assessments, supplier compliance records, previous audits, etc.  Lastly, do not take it personally but be prepared to take any constructive criticism they offer. External auditors give unbiased reports and so you should look at their feedback positively. Use their input to further improve your QMS compliance. Even if they did not provide any suggestions for any problems identified, enthusiastically seek for effective proposals on how to improve. 

 

Key Takeaway!


Auditing is the last yet most important stage in the certification process. A key aspect of maintaining a quality assurance certification is definitely looking for every opportunity to improve its compliance. External audits, including certification audits and surveillance audits, are thus crucial for your business to pass if you seek to achieve and maintain certification. Audits are a systematic process that will help to identify your management system’s errors or shortcomings and eventually make enforceable action plans to recover those errors. Keep all these things in mind to move your QMS in the right direction and ensure its complete conformity with the ISO 9001 guidelines.

Contact Details:

Business Name: Compliancehelp Consulting, LLC

Email Id: info@quality-assurance.com

Phone No: 877 238 5855

Also Read: Benefits Your Business is Missing Out Without an ISO Certification

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