The Role of the Quality Auditor – What are the Challenges We Face?

Related to Auditor Experience

If you are new to auditing or you have limited experience then the challenge of performing an audit can be quite daunting. It is not at all unusual to feel like a fish out of water (so to speak).
The best way to approach this is to be professional in our approach – to understand the audit subject and to use the knowledge of the auditee to our advantage.

Related to Auditor Development & Competence

After 25 years of auditing in a civil aviation environment I am firmly of the opinion that the best auditor development comes from mentoring and actual auditing practice. A Basic course is an excellent introduction to the “rules of the trade”.

It is also fair to say that observing experienced auditors conducting a range of different audits over several weeks is highly beneficial and will help to advance the development of the auditor.

It is very worthwhile to include the delivery of a physical audit annually by the auditor observed either by the CM or a nominated quality assessor as part of the annual competence assessment process.

Related to the Auditee Attitude

Often the auditee is not so welcoming in regard to the audit – even some auditees may feel threatened and believe in some way that the auditor is somehow making a personal assessment of the auditee. Of course this is in no way correct and we should clearly communicate that compliance audits are related to system process and procedures and not the person.

The best way to approach this is during the “pre-audit” conversation where we explain very clearly the purpose and objective of our audit.

The more comfortable we are able to make the auditee feel the more likely we will have a successful outcome.

Related to our knowledge and understanding

It is important to correctly prepare for the audit and as a rule of thumb we should allow as much time to prepare the audit as to physically carrying it out.

Time spent understanding the fundamental objective of the regulations and standards which sit behind process is always beneficial when trying to determine where the exposures are. The auditor is challenged to determine that the system is fully compliant both externally with the regulations and internally with the organisational documentation, we do not have unlimited time to perform the audit so we need to be able to focus on the essential aspects of the process.

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