Internal Audit Observation

I'm not sure what you are reporting. When you audit strictly against ISO 9001 you end up with this kind of "is/is not" finding. You state

What does this mean? Are they supposed to be "readily available"? It seems to me that you could have dug a lot deeper than the (apparent) issue you think you've uncovered. Profit/loss isn't a quality objective for starters. In fact, I'd ask why you were even doing this audit? Surely, it doesn't need an audit to determine if a process has objectives established and if it's got a set of measurements applied to it...

 

The content has to be objective and factually based...

 

Hi Maria! I'm not understanding your comment relative to the OP's statement. He says that something isn't "readily available". I'm left wondering what that means.

 

Yes Maria, I wasn't saying you made that statement.

 

Objectives are one thing...measures are something else. Measures are HOW you determine and/or demonstrate if the organization is meeting the defined objectives. They need to be related. For example, if your quality measure is "Fewer customer complaints", but you're tracking profit/loss...there isn't really a direct relationship between those two. One could argue that the higher the complaints, the greater the loss, but there are too many other variables that can impact profit.

So, returning to the idea of "Few customer complaints", your metric could be something such as "# of complaints per 1,000 products sold"

As for the comment about 'readily available'...to whom? The auditors who wanted to see how objectives were measured? Or the employees who should know how their activities impact objectives and associated measures?

 

It's a nice start, but I don't think a notebook is a good way to (a) record data, (b) identify trends and (c) ensure historical traceability to see if actions taken have had a positive impact on the adverse situation.

 

With all due respect, for the purposes of an internal audit, becoming focused on the use of 'should' instead of 'shall' (or 'shall' instead of 'should') adds very little - if any - value to the intent of the finding...and runs the risk of derailing this thread. Padym's question is not about the use of 'should' or 'shall', but is more about creating an actionable finding for the intended recipient(s) to resolve and ensuring it's assigned to the right clause (per his organization's internal audit process, I presume)

To be honest, if an audit finding is going to reference a clause, I'd rather it was written in as plain-and-simple English (or the language of the organization) as possible. That's what will resonate with the recipient of the finding. If they need to come back to the internal auditor (or audit team) later with questions on what the real issue is, then the internal auditor and/or audit team has failed in their attempt communicate a recognized gap/opportunity within the management system. This can lead to poor engagement within the organization regarding audits, the audit process and the auditors. Leave the formal stuff to the external auditors. Keep your internal audits structured and applicable to the standard, but simple and easy for the organization.

In Padym's situation, providing the clause number is sufficient and then, instead of repeating the clause statement where the gap has been identified, I would have phrased the finding in such a way that the situation was clearly and succinctly detailed, allowing the recipient(s) to quickly determine actions for resolution. For example (and please keep in mind that we don't have all of the information regarding the situation so there are several possibilities and these are potentially incomplete):

• The organization has not developed or identified measures/metrics suitable for demonstrating the achievement of quality objectives.
• The organization is unable to provide evidence on the deployment and achievement of quality objectives.
• The organization has not developed or identified measures/metrics suitable for demonstrating achievement of planned results (NOTE : This is different than quality objectives. Planned results could also refer to the ability to meet customer requirements and the production controls/measures in place to confirm the ability and capability of meeting those requirements).

The examples above are just a few possibilities on how to word a finding so that the recipient can really focus on the identified issue instead of having to translate the requirement of the standard and then remember the details of the audit. Focusing on semantics such as 'should vs. shall' or using subjective terms such as 'readily available' distract from what the real issue.

 

It's best to report this in a factual manner, in that case, rather than use subjective language, like "not readily available". Simply report, "There was no evidence of measurement of the process". Of course, you might want to check on what your own management SAY is required for the subject process (rather than what ISO says) since you don't have to set objectives and measurements for ALL processes. For example, there are many more processes going on in your car, but only a few are measured/monitored if you look at the dashboard!