When to do external audits
When to do them
Most quality management system design and implementations are done on a project basis. That means there is a plan and a deadline. Quite often such plans are based on financial or calendar year deadlines. This means that nearly all quality management system certifications are ‘promised’ for completion either in June or December of any given year. By sticking to such an arbitrary line in the sand, most businesses then have certification audits planned for these two months as well.
Firstly, the impact on your company during these busy periods may outweigh the benefits, leave employees stressed with the timing or you may experience availability issues. Next, your certification provider is also stretched at these times. The big whammy in all of this, especially around the recertification phases, is that once you get to annual reviews, there are even more companies seeking certification and recertification in these two months making the whole process even more compressed. This creates situations where certificates may expire, your preferred auditor is not available and perhaps key personnel within your company also difficult to pin down.
Do yourself, your company and your certification provider a favour. Plan to do your certification audits in April or October and you will at least mitigate one hurdle in the certification process.
Booking Audits
Each certification body has a different process for booking an audit. Some are more helpful than others. You need to find out very early what their process is so that way you can compare the service delivery to your expectations.
If you have more than one site, in more than one state, ask for a 'national coordinator'. Find out what the lead times are for making a request for an audit. Some certification bodies have very strict engagement rules, booking rules, change in date rules and quite specific requirements concerning what records are to be generated before a certification audit can take place. When booking audits or changing audit dates, communicate early, communicate often. Many certification providers have penalty clauses in their terms and conditions. Make sure you know them and meet them. Others just have unwieldy, large bureaucracies that cannot handle change quickly. Others will assign you a dedicated client manager who will work with you to ensure both parties can be accommodated. If the certification body requires written confirmation, find out what format will be acceptable and use it.
Audit preparations
Some guidelines / prerequisites for planning your first certification audit include; all mandatory procedures are written and implemented, records of these procedures have been generated that demonstrate effective implementation (one record is not effective implementation), awareness training of all relevant staff has been conducted and recorded, at least 2 management reviews have taken place, at least 5 nonconformances have been identified with the resulting corrective actions effectively implemented and closed, a majority of your internal quality audits have been conducted. Be careful, some certification bodies require all audits have been completed, ensure the relevant people will be available, ensure practical, comfortable and 'secure' work spaces can be made available for the auditor, provide lunch (it might not help but it can't hurt), ask for an audit plan and expect one.
Some certification bodies have quite exhaustive precertification visits, documentation reviews and expectations. Get them defined and meet them and at the end of the day if it all seems a bit difficult, look at changing your provider.