The problem of inexperience

Rohit Bakshi discusses the role of the management representative and why an inexperienced auditor should never be allowed near senior management

One of the most important responsibilities of a management representative is to promote an awareness of customer requirements throughout the organization. The ISO 9000 series allows the appointment of an MR either from senior management or the subcontracting of an external representative. However, in my opinion, an external consultant cannot do justice to the responsibilities involved, as they are not involved in the day-to-day activities of the organization. If an external person is appointed, the senior management of the organization must ensure continuity in fulfilling MR responsibilities by employing a consultant who comes from a senior management level himself.

In many cases, the inexperienced auditor doesn’t understand that top management thinking may be entirely different from that of the MR, even though the MR might come from senior management him or herself. The MR will give replies that directly answer the questions asked by an auditor, whereas it’s necessary to ask direct questions of senior management to really see whether a quality management system is being implemented. This is something that an inexperienced auditor, internal or external, may ignore.

This is why, in my opinion, only experienced internal auditors should audit senior management. Most auditors come from a technical background and have dealt with people working at engineer level or below; they spend most of their time at this level and hardly ever interact with senior management. At the most they will be in touch with the quality assurance manager, who is often the MR of the organization. This generates the misguided impression that the MR represents senior management with relation to all quality-related matters. The thinking is that if he/she is spoken to then the job will have been done and the auditor need not speak to the top management.

Another problem with using an inexperienced auditor can occur when reporting nonconformities. Internal audit nonconformities are extremely valuable in my experience. During audits, the internal auditor can give recommendations for improvement where it’s not possible with an external audit. However, problems can occur when, for example, the internal auditor is at junior level. They could hold back when reporting nonconformities due to fear of repercussions from superiors. We, as auditors, are supposed to state the facts based on objective evidence, even though it may transpire that no action is taken.

With regards the classification of findings into major or minor corrective action reports the auditor should be able to decide easily whether to identify findings as major or minor observations. Particularly in the case of internal audits, observations can make the difference between a positive or negative audit.

Although there is no mandatory requirement to classify findings as major or minor, sometimes when an internal audit is carried out it becomes necessary to categorize findings to make observations clear to an external auditor. On occasion, internal audit findings do not correspond to those of an external auditor which could lead to misunderstandings. This again is where an inexperienced auditor may fall short, as it is experience that recognises the need to carry out such classifications.

About the author

Rohit Bakshi is a mechanical engineer with 23 years of experience; 17 years in the quality control and inspection department and the last six years in the quality assurance department. He is currently the QA manager with Poyry Energy Ltd, a design and engineering consultancy with its head offices in Zurich and Finland.

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