The audits in the ISO standards outline can be of first part when they are carried out with internal purposes by the organization. These audits are the internal audits. The audits of second part are those carried out by the clients of an organization to make sure that the organization fulfils the requirements of the standard required to buy him. And finally the audits of third part exist when they are carried out by independent bodies and credited to recommend through certain committees the certification of other organizations.
It is interesting to observe in the different organizations in those in which a management system has been implemented under the principles of the ISO standards that can be certifiable. The audits not always are lived as a natural process that adds value to the organizational processes and that they should always have the stamp of the continuous improvement. We should remember that these implementations require of internal audits, of maintenance and of certification. The personnel in these organizations have to deal with several audits per year to detect deviations in the process in which their activities and tasks are carried out.
This framework has been favourable to visualize how in a high percentage of cases it is suffered of an exact understanding on the same fact of the audit, the role of the audited and the auditor's responsibility.
In the first place, we could say that the audit itself it is by nature a positive fact. Somebody with expertise and objectivity takes the time of evaluating the state of situation of the process in the work and the interaction of this in the management system with the purpose of assisting deviations to it.
The audited itself should receive an audit with the security that it is a contribution to the continuous improvement. Somebody with objectivity will observe the work and will carry out a relation among this and the fulfilments of the standard that it was implemented.
Unfortunately that expressed in the two previous paragraphs is not very common. Partly this happens because of the auditors' responsibility.
Through their norm ISO 19011, the ISO standard gives the general parameters for the audits. Specifically it gives guidelines for the auditor of the quality and environmental management systems. This standard plus the reading and understanding of the rest of the standards and the conceptual foundation that give among other elements the quality eight principles should give without problems to the auditors the understanding of the reach that has their role in the management systems.
In the first place it is pertinent to say that an auditor is not a judge, he doesn't judge what he observes, he doesn't judge people that is auditing, and he has neither the authority nor the power to judge and to sentence. Visualized problems should not be solved. He does not order that it is made. The auditor doesn't judge. He is not and he has not the role of a judge. This is a basic premise of every auditor of a management system that wants to carry out their work in a responsible way.
In the second place, it is needed to clarify that an auditor is not an inspector. He does not inspect and he does not have police power. The standard it is not similar to the effective legislation that the inspectors sought. The standard is a standard of voluntary implementation. The auditor of a management system does not have the role of an inspector.
The ISO auditor is a competent person to carry out an audit to the management system. The auditor understands that an audit is a systematic, independent and documented process to obtain evidences and to evaluate them with objectivity with the purpose of notifying the level of audit criteria fulfilments. An auditor only takes a “photograph” to the management system, without judging. The supposed deviations that are found in the audit should be presented without categorical statements. He should only express what he observes from his place in the moment to carry out the audit in the audited place. This is very important. In an organizational moment nobody can have the complete security of something and maxim when great part of the audits is only samples.
Another topic that it is difficult to believe, it is how still the idea endure in the organizations that resulting non conformities of the audits can aim at people. The standard never says that a Non Conformity can be made to people. It is clear that the audited are only facilitators to find deviations to the management System. The Non conformities are always to the management system. Unfortunately, it is normal to listen that the personnel tells they are going to make or they made me so many non conformities when audits are taking place.
This does not help. In the current context of the organizations we already have enough with the orthodox models of implementation of the ISO standard that have made the standard to be complex and difficult. If we add to this that the role of the auditors is not always clear, we finish understanding some ideas that circulate regarding the implementations and the systems under the principles of this international standard.
The auditor must read all the standards again; understand the principles that impel it. The auditor's work is to be of compromise, of ethics applied to the reality and of responsibility when intervening in the work of others.
Author Resource:-
*Communicator (UMSA) specialized in organizational processes of instrumental character. Leader auditor ISO 9001. Leader auditor ISO 14001. Leader auditor ISO 27001-
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