[Audit Procurement Feiyang] 8 Common Mistakes Auditors Make During Enterprise ISO Audits!

Eight Common Mistakes Made by Auditors

1 Not understanding products and processes

If you know nothing about the activities, processes, products, and services to be audited, no matter how detailed the checklist is, it cannot improve the effectiveness of the audit because you only dare to read the checklist without any extended questioning.

The first step of an audit should be to collect information including standard requirements, system document requirements, concentrated issues from the last audit, key and difficult points in management, etc. However, some auditors are lazy and skip this preparation step.

After the opening meeting, each auditor starts the audit directly. In fact, the audit team leader should hold a meeting among team members before starting the audit to communicate the audit intent, clarify audit focus and special attention points, and remind everyone to have a team collaboration awareness to jointly help the factory deeply uncover valuable audit findings.

During the audit, there is insufficient experience to identify and judge the difficult and key points in management, and no ability to explore the root causes in depth and breadth for the discovered tip of the iceberg.

Some auditors have 'ulterior motives' when sampling, continuously checking or holding a stack of documents until they find a problem and immediately record it as an audit finding. Samples should be closely related to the audit purpose, representative, and in quantities between 3 and 12.

During the audit, effective work involves good listening, observing, checking, questioning, and recording. Some auditors ask questions like 'How do you do operational planning?' which leaves the auditee confused.

One should understand continuous improvement, remind minor issues gently, and focus on major system deficiencies. Always adhere to the audit concept of 'effectiveness'.

The entire audit process should follow PDCA, but some auditors spend a lot of time and effort preparing and conducting the audit but are not strict in following up on corrective actions and closure, greatly reducing the value of the audit work. (Especially for internal audits)

Only by finding problems can problems be solved. Qualified auditors are the driving force for continuous improvement in enterprises. In our daily work's 'thousand-mile dike,' timely identification of that dreadful 'ant nest' is crucial.