In advance of any audit process, you want your procedures and processes to be fine-tuned and your employees to be self-assured, competent, and prepared. That way, you are more likely to impress the auditors and obtain your ISO certification on your company’s first try!

ISO 9001:2015 is the most sought after certification. Gaining a certification to this popular standard helps businesses and organizations to be more efficient and improve customer satisfaction.

So, what will happen during an ISO 9001:2015 audit? We’re here to give you some insight on some key points that you can expect so you and your employees can go into the audit process with your heads (and your confidence levels) held high.

• Establishment of the Quality Policy
  • An auditor will first conduct a thorough review of your quality process document(s). Typically, an auditor will then choose employees, at random, to assess their understanding of quality policy documents. A poor response from employees could lead to a nonconformity under this requirement/clause.
• Properly Documented Information
  • Your documented QMS will be thoroughly reviewed by auditors before and during the registration audit. It is then the responsibility of every employee to implement the QMS as documented.
  • Also, auditors are constantly looking for documents that are not controlled but should be – sometimes referred to as renegade documents. The uncontrolled, “on the wall” documents are very easy for auditors to find. Auditors may use the life cycle matrix analysis tool (which can be found in our ISO 9001:2015 pocket guide) to assess the thoroughness of your company’s document control procedures.
• Improvements
  • “Preventative action” has been removed from the body of the ISO 9001:2015 standard; therefore, any action taken is considered a corrective action.
  • Areas of nonconformity within the QMS will be pointed out and your company will have a chance to rectify them.
  • Be prepared to offer objective evidence of your company’s efforts and results of continual improvement to the auditors. Continual improvements are very important to auditors!

We have the most user-friendly pocket guides to help you and your team before, during, and after the audit process. Visit our website to view our entire collection and to purchase; we offer generous quantity discounts! Contact Quality Pursuit with any questions at (800) 278 – 7784.