9.2 QA activities Outsourced Internal Audit to be conducted BEFORE or AFTER Management Review?

Good afternoon all. Im responsible for QMS as SHEQ Coordinator in terms of conducting Internal Audits and after i have conducted them for all processes, i outsource internal audit for QA (i'm responsible for) and Management activities ( i'm not at Management level nor part of Management ).

Kindly advise if Outsourced Internal Audit for QA and Management activities should be done before Management Review or after the Review because Management Review as a process, it falls under QA & Management.

 

QA and Management activities are activities done to ensure Quality Assurance performed by myself (SHEQ Coordinator), Control of Documented Information,Internal Audits, Nonconformance & Corrective Actions, and Management activities include Context of the Organisation, Leadership, Support (Resources), Management Review, Improvements

 

my junior position would limit me in auditing Top Management as i may not be privy to some information at a STRATEGIC LEVEL . eg Quality Policy and Quality Objectives established for QMS should be compatible with context and strategic direction of the company - how do i verify that if my position does not allow me to consume some information at Strategic level?

 

My concern is that if im audited before Management Review , then Management Review as a process would have not been audited and if im audited after management review, then the outsourced internal audit cant be captured and discussed during Management Review.

 

Yes we are certified, i must be clear and say i include Management Process for outsourced internal auditing assuming that they may not allow to share strategic information with me and with that i dont mean Quality Policy and Objectives. i mean Strategic Direction of the company

 

Don't view management review and auditing as a singular event. They both should be continuously happening. So if you have a management review, you might only have a portion of audit results available. The balance would be available at the next management review. Just keep the wheel turning and you should be fine.

 

When presented with a question like this, it seems that Micheal's organization carries out their management review once a year. If internal audits and management reviews are done more frequently, this should not be an issue. For example, the results of the audit for the processes that were covered for the first quarter should be part of the inputs on the 1st quarter management review. The results of the 2nd set of processes covered in the 2nd quarter internal audit should be an input on the 2nd quarter management review, and so on. Internal audit for the Management processes (e.g. internal audit, management review, etc.) can be set on the 3rd or last quarter of the year. Then the cycle starts again on the next year.

 

Thats correct, Management Review is done annually hence my dilemma

 

We do internal audits annually and the following month we conduct Management Review also annually and after two months its Surveillance Audit done by Certification Body also done annually. and outsourced Internal Audit should be done to audit my work and Top Management Processes and the question is when should it ideally be held.

 

Micheal, instead of lumping all the processes in one month to audit them, spread them throughout the year. Audit the core processes (e.g. sales, production) on the 1st quarter, support processes (e.g. human resource, maintenance) on the 2nd quarter, the management processes (e.g. business planning, management review, internal audit) on the 3rd quarter, and so on. After each quarter perform your organization's management review. Each review doesn't need to cover all the required inputs. Only those that are relevant to cover.

Since your CB audits your organization every month of July, they might ask evidence of the internal audit for management processes. Present your schedule and this should not be a problem to them. If they raise an issue concerning the schedule, require them to audit your organization on the last quarter.

 

Even if Management Review is done annually, it's still a wheel. At some point you'll have a full audit cycle available to review. You might use a mix of last years and this years audits. In other words, any audit that wasn't an input into the last management review becomes an input into the next management review.

As an aside, I am sure your management reviews the organizational metrics and such on a more frequent basis than annually. That's "Management Review" too. I would try to capture that and use it.