Hello everyone,

Fairly new to my current role and been chucked in some what deep waters already for an upcoming audit.

A requirement of the upciming audit is an internal audit schedule, we do not currently have anything.

My question is, is there a standard template for Scheduleing audits to ISO 9001, 45001 etc? That i could then complete internal audits/checlists against?

To be quite honest, and at risk of sounding silly, i have no idea where to start, or what should deinately be included!

Any Templates or additional help/documents would be GREATLY appreciated.

Thanks!

Any auditing schedule will be dependent upon who is auditing and how they are auditing.

Back in BS 5750 days you would have a pool of trained internal auditors and a list of documented procedures seeking to audit each at least once per year (and trying not to have an auditor look at their own work area).

In more recent times as internal enthusiasm has waned it has made more sense to use an external auditor in essence mimicking the three year cycle published by the certification body (a sample of procedures audited at each visit).

Personally I would bite the bullet - tell the external auditor you are new to the role and get them to advise what may work best for your organisation - this should dodge an imediate non-conformance by switching it to an opportunity for improvement although this will likely be a temporary reprieve as I suspect they will ask for a written improvement plan to be provided within x months.

As the "keeper" of the procdeures an external auditor would be concerned if you are seen to be auditing what would be considered your own work.

Hi CB, good advice from Roundtuit and Kate.

Is this an external audit in connection with getting or maintaining one or more ISO accreditations? If so, somewhat surprising that your organisation hasn't had regular internal audits.

Or perhaps e.g. an audit by a prospective Client even though your organisation hasn't got ISO accreditations and possibly have never wanted them. However, there might be commercial reasons to go down that route.

Timing might be tricky but may be you could do with some ISO auditor training - look for a trainer who is IRCA accredited EVEN if you might not want to end up with those letters attached to your name.

Whatever, you need to have a good look at what is happening to try and reduce the number of Non Conformance Reports or similar comments that are likely to follow this external audit. Some issues are much easier to close out quickly than others!

Finally, given that it appears that this has been dumped on you, time to review your systems to check that ownership and responsibility is mostly devolved down line management and is not all loaded on to the Safety/Quality/Anythingelsewecanthinkof Bod.