ISO 9001:2015 conversion audit coming up

So, I've just finally have heard from our CB, and I've been asking them to send me a quote for the next three years of service, especially since we're converting to the 2015 standard this fall, and our previous three years is up.

Now, i was just on the phone and my CB was saying we have to have almost two rounds of audit,
the first one, he's giving me less than a months notice, for a 1/2 day of document review,

and then he wanted to do the next one in July, although we aren't even scheduled to have to renew until December, so I said no, and not to do one until September.
My question I guess is for anyone that was ISO9001:2008 and has converted or been upgraded to the 2015 standard, did you have to have the document review visit as well?
Is this necessary?

I've only done one full system audit previously, but that was to continue on for the 2008 version, so this part is new to me.

Thanks

 

We haven't completed our migration to 2015, but it has been planned with our CB. What we have been told is that they need to add an extra day to the next scheduled audit so that they time to cover the new/different requirements of the 2015 standard. According to the CB, this is a requirement that has been imposed by the accreditation body with the theory being that they have scheduled x days over a 3 year period for surveillance audits of the existing requirements, so they will need extra time on top of those scheduled days to review additional requirements. My personal opinion (and that of our external auditor) is that there shouldn't be any reason why you need any extra audit days - you just audit the requirements of whatever version of the standard at that time - but if it is actually an edict from the accreditation body our hands are tied.

 

My cynical brain went right there when he was telling me this, which is exactly why I wrote the post.

I understand that quite a few things have changed, but IMO, they should be able to fit everything in, in the two days (which is really almost 4 because we have two auditors that come in) that they'll be coming in, in the fall.

I have a lot of issues with these guys in general, but we use them because of the price i think (which is annoying).

 

I have no idea what the "shoulds" and "musts" are, there are plenty here who can answer from that angle. But we just had our 2015 upgrade audit in February, and here's what I experienced from the "auditee" POV:

The upgrade was done during our regular Surveillance audit #1 (since we had just renewed our 2008 in 2016) which was 3 days as is normal for us.

There was no extra time in the audit plan specifically allocated to the 2015 upgrade, but he took about 2 hours at the end of the audit to verify we were meeting all the new requirements. The clauses he checked during this were: 4, 5, 6, 7.4, and 7.1.6. It was fairly quick and painless. (Not the months of prep leading up to it mind you, just the review. haha!)

At no point was there any mention of extra audits.

 

No. I just contacted my CB and told them that we are ready to transition to ISO9001:2015. There was no additional visit just for document review.

 

Perfect, thank you!

 

July would be our second surveillance audit to 2008 should that be ongoing. Since it's a transition audit, the schedule stays the same. Having worked for a CB, I know that a table is published for the number of audit days for the number of employees (I don't recall who publishes this table), but the CB doesn't have flexibility to increase days unless the table says "2-3 days" for example. If I recall correctly, the table is very specific on the number of audit days.

 

We had our transition audit in August and it was all done in one day, we did totally replace our old muti-file QMS for a streamlined single file containing the basics, the first half the audit reviewd the new file/documentation against the requirements and the second half was an audit of our processes. All went well and it was done and dusted in 8 hours.