Audit Management System and Auditor Training

The AMS is a software product that allows you to fulfil the audit requirements of up to any three Management System Standards. It complies with (and exceeds) the administrative requirements of ISO 19011 Guidelines for Quality and/or Environmental Management System Auditing. It is pure audit process.

You can either use it to streamline your ISO 9001: 2000 internal auditing process, or use it to combine audits to both ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 and a third Standard, maybe Health and Safety. (OHSAS 18001) or IT Security ISO 27001. It is a vital part of an integrated management system.

Auditing software is conventionally designed for Standards compliance rather than effectiveness and it isn't the most exciting subject in the world anyway. Ours is designed for Standards compliance and effectiveness. We were surprised to find how this software, out on beta test with some normally cynical and overworked Quality Managers, created a level of enthusiasm for auditing and a determination to get the most out of the process that we found very encouraging. It generated a surprising level of buy-in from Senior Managers too, when shown the results at management review. It is possible to reverse some of the popular misconceptions about auditing and this software can play a part.

These are some of the benefits;

- Fewer 'system' problems with Registrars as the system is highly defined and covers all aspects of auditing.
- Better audits carried out by internal auditors as they have more guidelines to work from with the Typical Questions, Clause-related questions, and the Refresher training. Therefore a lower skill level is required to be an internal auditor, and you can get more staff involved.
- Fewer unclosed Actions detected by Registrars as you can get a report at the click of a button, rather than wading through a filing cabinet
- Less time spent administering the system as it is all there in front of you
- Better, higher quality and more timely closure as you can communicate the required actions to Managers more easily and more concisely.
- Improved response at Management Review from better Root Cause analysis.
- Better and faster quality system improvement as a result.

It is designed to be easy to use by busy Quality Managers, who don't want to have to relearn it every six months.

It has the lockouts that a professional Quality Manager would expect; for example, it will not allow someone defined as responsible for a Department, function or process to audit themselves.

You can either use it as a fully electronic audit administration system, or keep paper copies and just use it to control the process. All-in-all it meets the requirements of the most pedantic Registrar, while allowing you to extract maximum benefit from your audit programme for minimum effort.

Detailed description

You can define the Clauses of the Standard (ISO 9001: 2000 is already loaded) and you can assign Clauses to Department, Functions or Processes.

You can set up your own typical auditing questions e.g. 'What improvement projects are you involved in?' for each Standard and also assign specific questions to each Clause, thereby interpreting the Standard to your own activities. Some suggestions have been loaded, but feel free to modify them.

You can set up the total number of audits for the Audit Period, then schedule them by month. The monthly Audit Schedule report is graphical and the bars turn red when the audit is overdue.

The software allows you to repeat the Audit Plan very easily for the next Audit Period, with new audit numbers and allowing you to assign new auditors. You can do more than one audit of an area within one Audit Period, by simply adding another audit. This helps you to comply with the ISO 9001: 2000 requirement (it was there in ISO 9000: 1994 as well!) to adjust your audit frequency based on severity, importance and all that.

You can build up a complete Audit Plan, using trained auditors, and publish it in electronic and/or paper format. You can then print off physical audit report forms for auditors to fill in, with all the required Audit Report numbers, Clauses, questions, forms, etc. pre-printed.

The Audit Plan can then be logged, tracked and reported to completion. Discrepancies can be raised against a specific Clause of a Standard or as an Observation.

Once the audits are done, discrepancies and the associated corrective actions can be loaded back in to the system. A printed Audit Report can then be printed for signing and retention as 'proof' if your Assessor requires it. The resulting Actions can be tracked and reported to completion. You can email any member of staff with a list of the Actions they are responsible for cumulatively from any number of audits.

As a special feature to meet ISO 9001:2000, you can define a Root Cause for each discrepancy, resulting in charts of Root Causes against Standards, Audit Periods or Departments/Functions/Processes. These can be taken to Management Review and meet the audit requirement for the Measurement and Analysis clause. It is also much better business practice and allows a more serious review to take place. By having one or more of these as essentially positive, (Process improved but Procedures not yet updated) you can take away a lot of the negativity of auditing.

The deal

The software runs on any version of Windows and requires Microsoft Access. The license is a single-user license as it is installed on the Audit Administrator's PC. Communication with Auditors, Auditees and Actionees is via email using reports from the software. There are essentially no limits to how many audits you can control using it, or how many auditors you can have.

The software is highly customisable, and has to be set up to suit your organisation in a number of ways. For example you have to tell it what departments you have and what Clauses of the Standard(s) are to be audited in each. You also have to give it details of your internal auditors, and what Standards they are trained to audit. It is delivered with a 'vanilla' set of questions relating to the Clauses of ISO 9001, as this is by far the most common use. These are customisable to suit your industry, and you will need to develop your own questions for other Standards.

The deal includes a year's free email Technical and Auditing support. Alternatively, for major users, or if you do not feel confident undertaking the initial setup, we offer a package of on-site support. This normally includes installing the software, assisting in customising the software, training the Audit Administrator in using the system, and if necessary training the internal auditors.