Audit overview

During the audit planning phase, the audit planner specifies all the activities to be completed or specified before performing the audit.

The audit planner creates the quality audit object and specifies its properties such as the audit objective and the audit method. The audit planner also specifies the following:

• Audit team: The personnel who participate in the audit or who are responsible for the execution of the audit. These include various roles such as lead auditor, moderator, and the auditee or user responsible.

Members: The personnel who are interested in the outcome of the audit findings. Audit members may not be assigned to any audit roles in particular.

Auditee: The people and organization who are being audited are considered to be the auditee.

Lead Auditor: A qualified person with ISO certification or any other certification who is required to execute an audit. Only one lead auditor is specified for an audit.

Co-Auditor: A qualified person with ISO certification or any other certification who accompanies the lead auditor during the audit.

Note When you are specifying the lead auditor or the co-auditor, make sure that you select qualified users.

• Audit location: The location of the audit. This can be specified as remote, on-site, or a combination of both remote and on-site.

• Audit schedule: The tentative planned start and end dates of the audit.

• Audit agenda: The detailed agenda of the audit. This helps the participants of the audit to plan their schedule and availability.

• Checklists: These checklists contain the questionnaires that are used during the execution phase of the audit. Based on the standards, the audit planner creates these checklists in the Quality Master Data library and links these checklists to the audit object.

Example

Consider a scenario where there are issues in the production line of the steering wheel assembly of a car. The problem occurs for a few weeks, and isolated incidents are resolved, but the issues keep occurring. Realizing that the issues could be related to oversight in processes, the company decides to conduct an ad-hoc internal audit to inspect all the steps in the steering wheel production process.

While planning the audit, the audit planner specifies the objective of the audit: to analyze the production process of the steering wheel assembly. As the audit is conducted on-site, the audit planner specifies the audit location accordingly. The audit planner then adds the shop floor personnel, supervisor, management representatives, and those who want to keep a track of the audit, as the audit members. The audit schedule and the agenda are also specified so that the participants can plan their schedule and availability. The questionnaires that are assessed during the audit execution phase are created as checklists in the Quality Master Data library and associated with the audit.