Types of Audits – QMS System Product and Quality Compliance Audit
Quality management system qms audit is necessary in order to check and ensure that company is following all mandatory requirements.
A good quality audit ensures that quality system is in place and able to religiously provide good quality to the customers.
Quality control audit also highlights the need for any improvement in the quality management system in order to consistently deliver good quality products or services.
At organizational level the qms audits are also performed to make sure that the organization is following the legal and regulatory requirements.
Some audits are conducted by internal auditors whereas some are performed by external parties or certification audit agencies.
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Types of Audits for Quality Assurance
There are many types of audit, that depends upon the purpose of the audit. In technical terms there are different types of audits.
System Audit
Most of the organizations have various management or operation systems which when put together make a whole integrated management system.
When management wants to make sure its systems are well maintained, they decide to conduct internal audits. A system audit is an audit performed on any of the systems in a company. Any non-conformity during a system audit is critical, since if the system itself is wrong, the output is likely to be wrong.
Product or Service Quality Audit
We shall conduct a product or service audit on the product or service itself to find out if the product or service meets the requirements of the customers and the standards set by the organization.
You can perform a product audit or a service audit at various stages of the production or manufacturing.
It could be during the process of product manufacturing, after the product has been manufactured, or even after the product is packed and ready to be delivered to the customer.
If there is any non conformity during the quality assurance audit, this becomes very serious, since all the non conformities at this stage are equivalent to customer complaints.
Department / Functional Audit
As the name suggests, the department audit is performed with a focus on a given department or function.
The scope of the audit covers all the activities performed by a department, all the procedures followed and all the systems available in the department.
This type of audit highlights the areas for improvement in the specific department.
Process Audit
This is very well known that various processes are critical for the smooth running of an organization.
All the activities from order inquiry to delivery of products follow a defined process in any organization. Therefore an audit of such processes helps organizations to identify the areas for improvement.
Process audit also covers the audit of some special manufacturing processes that are critical for the quality of the end product. These processes may be in-house or at the suppliers place, the one to whom that process has been outsourced to.
The new ISO 9001 QMS version requires that companies must arrange for the audit of outsourced processes if any outsourcing is applicable.
Conformance Audit
The external parties normally perform this QA audit. It is a form of third party audit where the auditing party evaluates if the organization does meet the requirements as are supposed to by the systems.
This could also be for any kind of system certifications that organizations wish to apply for.
The certification companies also conduct the conformance audit periodically to make sure that the organization is meeting the certification requirements.
Compliance Audit
Compliance audit is performed by regulatory agencies to confirm if the organization is meeting the legal and regulatory requirements.
In case of any non-conformity, a re-audit may be required. The purpose of the re-audit is to ensure the effectiveness of the corrective actions taken.
Purpose of Audit Report
The output of the audit is an audit report that is circulated to all the concerned people.
The purpose of any type of QA audit is not to find mistakes, but to find the areas for improvements.
If it is taken by the auditor and the audited party in this spirit, the organization can be sure that it is on the path to improvement and will be able to consistently meet all customers, system, legal or regulatory requirements.
