Establishing an Audit Plan for ISO 9001 Certifications: Things You Should Know

Are you planning to improve the quality of your business process? Well, achieving the latest ISO 9001 certification can help you with it. ISO 9001 is an internationally recognized standard for QMS (Quality Management Systems). Implementing this ISO standard in your business process shows that all the products and services you offer are safe and high-quality, meeting customer demands. But to pass the ISO 9001 audit process, you’ll need a third-party auditing team to help you with the audit plan for ISO 9001.

Want more info about it? Let’s dive into the below blog post to learn more about ISO 9001 audit plans.

What is the ISO 9001 audit plan?

The ISO 9001 audit plan is a document that outlines the resources, timing, and scopes needed for the audit process.

Alongside that, the document also defines the activities that need to be completed as a part of the ISO 9001 audit process.

One can build the audit plan from scratch. But you can also create one by adapting the existing strategy of another similar company.

This audit plan for ISO 9001 standards can help you verify if all the systems of your organization are up-to-date and comply with all the ISO 9001 requirements or not.

The ISO 9001 audit plan of your business must be developed with input from all the organizational stakeholders including the auditors, stakeholders, management, and other staff(s) who might be involved in the ISO 9001 audit process.

Why develop an audit plan to implement the ISO 9001 standard in your business?

An ISO 9001 audit plan is a crucial document to implement the ISO quality management standard in your business process.

It acts as a systematic approach to examine if the organization complies with the latest regulatory QMS requirements.

Developing an audit plan to implement the ISO 9001 standard in your business also comes with the following benefits:

1.It can help you lower the number of errors because of a better audit process and potential QMS threats with prior identification.

2.Having an ISO 9001 audit plan can help you prevent misunderstandings with employees or customers by establishing clear expectations of what will take place during the ISO 9001 audit process.

3.The management can use the ISO 9001 audit plan as a benchmark to assess vulnerabilities and risks of the organizational processes. The audit plan can also provide an overview of the level of risks your organization is dealing with. It can also help your ISO 9001 auditors check if you’re applying the appropriate controls to minimize the potential QMS risks.

4.It also minimizes the time spent on reading documents during the ISO 9001 audit process by clarifying the audit process to everyone involved in the ISO 9001:2015 audit process.

5.Having an audit plan for the ISO 9001 certification can help you boost organizational productivity by streamlining the processes in the audit plan.

6.It can also help you organize the ISO 9001 QMS audit process in a well-defined manner by defining the scope of the ISO 9001 audit process alongside who’ll do the audit, what’ll be audited, and how long it’ll take to complete the audit process. Preparing these before starting the ISO 9001 audit process can confirm that all aspects of the audit processes are planned for and well taken care of.

Should you DIY your company’s ISO 9001 audit plan or outsource it?

There are a lot of reasons why hiring professionals for developing the ISO 9001 audit plan may be ideal for you.

While some companies also consider doing it themselves.

Here are some considerations:

1.Domain knowledge:

Most organizations opt for one of the internal staff(s) to conduct the ISO 9001 audit process, as they will have both the understanding of organization procedures and the domain knowledge.

Alongside that, internal employees would also feel more passionate about planning the ISO 9001 audit plan with their understanding of the business.

However, the audit insights would be biased to the organization and missing loopholes, even if there are any.

Well, hiring a third-party auditor can help you develop the ISO 9001 audit plan and prevent these from happening.

2.Quality:

Having any of your internal staff(s) develop the ISO 9001 audit plan can look and feel easy because of their understanding of the business.

However, hiring a professional third-party auditing team to plan the ISO 9001 audit can help you conduct various types of audits, which can further lead to better decision-making to achieve higher-quality audit standards.

3.Costs:

Costs are a significant factor in most companies thinking of having internal staff(s) to develop the ISO 9001 plan.

But no employees are permanent in an organization. Thus, spending money to train them would be a waste, while hiring a professional third-party ISO 9001 auditing team can offer you discounts for long-term contracts.

Also, ISO 9001 audit planning should be a contract-basis task rather than a regular basis task.

Hence, outsourcing your ISO 9001:2015 auditing tasks to a professional third-party ISO 9001 audit specialist would be more beneficial than doing it yourself.

Bottom line

Are you planning to get your company ISO 9001 certified? Before you start preparing your brand, develop an audit plan for ISO 9001 certifications. We hope this blog post can help you understand that.