Organizations need controls to ensure objectives are achieved. Management’s job is to establish, implement and monitor controls, and the auditor’s job is to determine whether they are adequate.
In some cases, organizations adopt standards that require controls. Many performance standards call for control of an activity, process, function, department or system. Continue reading
Being a quality professional can be frustrating. People don’t seem to get what we do, and if they get it, they soon forget.
I recently had a conversation in which I told someone I was a quality professional. The response was, “Oh yeah, I know. You’re a quality inspector.” It can be just as frustrating working with fellow quality professionals who know what to do, but don’t understand why they are doing it. Continue reading
For one reason or another, there are far more audits of a product, service or process than audits of systems. While system audits verify management system conformance or compliance, their more prevalent brethren focus on the verification of specific methods and product or service characteristics. Continue reading
It seems that everyone knows the difference between a system and a process. We know processes and systems are related, but most of us aren’t sure when one begins and the other ends. ISO 9000 provides definitions, but they seem inadequate at times.
Understanding the differences between a process and a system is important for effective organization management and auditing programs. Understanding some of the dynamics will help in the development of value-added auditing strategies. Continue reading