ISO 9001 requires two types of quality audit – internal audits and yearly external audits to maintain system certification.
Subscribe Now
ISO 9001 is the the most popular standard on which the Quality Management System of many organizations are built upon. A Quality Management system ensures that the work performed by the organization follows defined processes so that the output product quality is consistent and hence customer satisfaction is ensured. ISO 9001 lists set of requirements which are to be complied with by the organization for successful certification. These requirements are called as ISO 9001 clauses. Quality Management systems of organizations are built upon these clauses. Quality audits are one of the important requirements of ISO 9001. A successful ISO 9001 certification requires internal audits as well as external (certification audits) to be completed. Internal audits are conducted by trained internal auditors who are part of the company itself. External audits are conducted by auditors from certification bodies. Audits are also classified as First, second and third party audits. First party audit refers to audits done within the organization; second party audit refers to audits conducted by the customer on its supplier organization while third party audit refers to the audits conducted by certification body (or any other third party).
Typically, organizations implement the internal audit requirement by defining an internal audit procedure, preparing an internal audit plan, training internal auditors, conducting internal audits and follow up on closure of non conformances. Typically, all these activities used to be conducted using pen and paper. However, nowadays with the availability of web based quality management system software, all these activities are being automated and done in a paperless way. The software packages have built in workflows which automate the entire cycle of activities in the internal audit process. Automating the internal audit process ensures the visibility and traceability of the reports and non conformances. Moreover, it acts as a repository for the internal audit reports, which can be accessed from anywhere at any time.
Effivity is renowned Quality Management system software which is used by many organizations to automate their Quality Management processes. The Internal audit module of Effivity has the facility to plan the internal audits, prepare the internal audit schedule and to host the internal audit checklists. There is another module Non conformance which handles the process of non conformance raising, monitoring, tracking and closure. Both these modules have a creative dashboard which provides a clear view of the different parameters. The internal audit dashboard provides the data of Non conformances in multiple slices and dices which are extremely useful to the various stakeholders in the organization. Both these modules have been carefully designed taking the requirements of ISO 9001:2015 into consideration. Hence, by using these functionalities, the organization automatically ensures its compliance to the requirements of the standard.
As the entire workflow has been automated, Effivity ensures that the organization deploys a robust and effective internal audit process across its ends. On the other side Effivity provides a seamless and easy to use interface for the users. The documents and records required for the ISO 9001 certification audit are automatically generated and maintained through these modules.