How many person-days are required for a 3-system audit, and how to quickly estimate it roughly?

Since the implementation of the unified national clock-in by the Certification and Accreditation Administration on September 15, 2021, supervision of audit time has only become stricter.

In the future, if any company asks why the audit takes so long, everyone can directly explain using data and policies based on the company's certification scope, number of people, and other related factors combined with the formula.

Once learned, on the path of certification, you will only become more professional!

Let's continue to see how to roughly calculate the audit man-days.

First, the above chart is recommended for everyone to save. Check the time based on the number of certified personnel and the risk level of the certification scope, then calculate.

The formula is: T = (Qt + Et + St) * 0.8

Simply put: it is the sum of the required audit times for each system multiplied by 0.8.

Example ①: A security company with 65 certified personnel, certification scope is security services (which is most likely medium risk), and business involves 3 systems.

Then the rough calculation of audit man-days is: T = (5 + 6 + 6) * 0.8 = 13.6 (man-days).

If 3 auditors for 3 systems are arranged, the audit will take about 5 days (phases one and two generally require at least half a day interval; the security company has at least one or more on-site visits, adding 0.5 man-days).

Example ②: A system integration company with 15 certified personnel, certification scope is system integration (where QE is medium risk, S is high risk), and the company’s business involves high-risk operations such as integrated cabling.

Then the rough calculation of audit man-days is: T = (2.5 + 3.5 + 4.5) * 0.8 = 8.4 (man-days).

If 2 auditors for 3 systems are arranged, the audit will take about 4-5 days.

Tips:

① The rough calculation time is the total audit time, which is the sum of phase one and phase two times.

② Man-day: one auditor auditing for one day is called 1 man-day.

③ This table only applies to the calculation of ISO9001, ISO14001, and ISO45001 systems.

④ No formal institution is willing to audit too many man-days; the more man-days, the more loss (if the certification fee remains unchanged, auditing one more man-day costs the certification body at least an additional 1000 in cost). Audit man-days are arranged according to the minimum requirements of the Certification and Accreditation Administration.

⑤ Multiple on-site visits within 20 minutes from the company office address do not add man-days; if exceeded, at least 0.5 man-days are added. If multiple on-site visits are too far, travel time is not counted as audit time.

⑥ The rough calculation only applies to the initial audit; for surveillance, it generally takes 1-2 days, and business personnel do not need to consider it so complicated.

⑦ During the audit, if an expert is assigned, the expert is a member of the audit team, but the expert’s audit time cannot be included in the calculation of audit man-days.