ISO 9001 Audit Trail

Book excerpt: This book has been revised to coincide with the issue of the ISO 9001 Family of Standards by the same author. The intention is to improve the standard of auditing, especially audits carried out under the banner of the ISO 9001 standard. The ISO 9001 standard is quite capable of allowing organizations, certification bodies, and auditors to judge if an organization is capable of consistently providing product or service that meets the customer and applicable statutory and regulatory requirements. At the present time, however, there is no common understanding about what the ISO 9001 audit should achieve. The aim of this book is to explain what auditing is capable of achieving, in particular the method of carrying out audits. There is, however, a need to improve the understanding of the ISO 9000 Family of Standards, and to this end, appendix C contains the first five pages of that book. Auditing can be costly and time consuming, and for it to be effective, it needs to give tangible benefits. This book will enable organizations and other interested parties to judge if their auditing activities are effective and beneficial. It enables them to examine their approach to audits and compare them with the techniques used within this book.