Both Quality Auditing and the Internal Auditing professions use the term ‘internal auditing.’  To avoid confusion, we usually differentiate between the two by using the terms ‘Quality Auditing’ and ‘Internal Auditing.’

Many organizations have an Internal Audit group that focuses on internal control, specifically:

“Internal control is broadly defined as a process, affected by an entity’s board of directors, management and other personnel, designed to provide reasonable assurance regarding the achievement of objectives in the following categories:

• Effectiveness and efficiency of operations.
• Compliance with applicable laws and regulations.
• Reliability of financial reporting.”[i]

Traditional Internal Auditors follow the institute of Internal Auditor Red Book standards as well as the COSO Integrated Framework of Internal Control.  Their professional designation is Certified Internal Auditor (CIA) issued by the Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA).

Quality or management system auditors focus on ISO 9001 and other quality management standards.  Management system auditors follow ISO 19011 as their guidance for conducting audits.  Their professional designation is Certified Quality Auditor (CQA) issued by the American Society for Quality (ASQ).

Lesson Learned: Internal Quality Auditing and traditional Internal Auditing are different.  Understand how they are different.  Try to integrate and align Internal Quality Audits with traditional Internal Audits.   Internal audits are already risk based.  They are ahead of you.  There is much you can learn about risk based auditing and RBT from the Internal Audit function.

Bio:

Greg Hutchins PE and CERM (503.233.101 & GregH@QualityPlusEngineering.com)  is the founder of:

CERMAcademy.com
800Compete.com
QualityPlusEngineering.com
WorkingIt.com

He is the evangelist behind Future of Quality: Risk®.  He is currently working on the Future of Work and machine learning projects.

He is a frequent speaker and expert on Supply Chain Risk Management and cyber security.  His current books available on all platform are shown below: