Scenario 7: POLKA is a car manufacturing company based in Stockholm, Sweden. The company has around 14,000 employees working in different sectors which help with the design, painting, assembling, and test drives of the final product. The company is widely known for its qualitative products and affordable prices. In order to retain their reputation, POLKA implemented a quality management system (QMS) based on ISO 9001.
Before applying for certification, the company decided to conduct an internal audit to check whether there are any nonconformities in their QMS and if the requirements of ISO 9001 are being fulfilled. The top management appointed Sean, the internal auditor, as the team leader of the internal audit team. Sean required from the top management to have unrestricted access to the employees and executives of POLKA and to the documented information. Furthermore, Sean required to establish a team with a large number of auditors, considering the size and the complexity of the organization. The top management of POLKA agreed with Sean's requirements.
The top management, in cooperation with Sean, assigned 10 more employees to the audit team. Following that. Sean planned the audit activities and assigned the roles and responsibilities to each auditor. They began by interviewing employees of different manufacturing departments to check whether they are aware of the process of the QMS implementation. While conducting these activities, one of the auditors asked Sean for permission to audit the department in which he worked on a daily basis, as he was very familiar with the processes of the department.
Along the way, the teams findings showed that the staff were trained, documented information was updated, and the QMS fulfilled the requirements of ISO 9001. The internal audit took three weeks to complete, and on the last week the audit team held a final meeting
The team shared their results and together drafted the audit report This report was submitted to the top management of the company. The report was maintained as documented information, and was available to the relevant interested parties.
Based on the scenario above, answer the following question:
Sean requested unrestricted access to the employees, executives, and documented information of POLKA. Is this in accordance with audit best practices?
A person who provides specific knowledge or expertise to the audit team during the audit is known as a/an:
(Select one option which defines the purpose of a second-party audit to ISO 9001.)
Scenario 4:
TD Advertising is a print management company based in Chicago. The company offers design services, digital printing, storage, and distribution. As TD expanded, its management recognized that success depended on adopting new technologies and improving quality.
To ensure customer satisfaction and quality improvement, the company decided to pursue ISO 9001 certification.
After implementing the QMS, TD hired a well-known certification body for an audit. Anne Key was appointed as the audit team leader. She received a document listing the audit team members, audit scope, criteria, duration, and audit engagement limits.
Anne reviewed the document and approved the audit mandate. The certification body and TD’s top management signed the certification agreement.
Before contacting TD, Anne reviewed the audit scope and noticed that TD made changes to it due to the adoption of new printing equipment. However, Anne disagreed with the changes, stating they would affect the audit timeline. She considered withdrawing from the audit.
Scenario 4 mentions that Anne received a document that contained the audit scope, criteria, duration, and the limits to the audit engagement. What did Anne receive in this case?
You are carrying out an audit to ISO 9001 at an organisation which offers consultancy services on the implementation of ISO 9001 quality management systems to manufacturers of cosmetics.
You are interviewing the Technical and Quality Director (TQD), who manages a team of biochemists responsible for providing ISO 9001 consultancy services to customers.
You: “How do you ensure your team’s competence concerning regulatory and ISO 9001 requirements?”
TQD: “We subcontract a part-time lead consultant who has years of experience working as a biochemist in the cosmetics industry. She is responsible for ensuring the team’s competency.”
You: “Do they retain any documented information on the individual competency of each consultant?”
TQD: “No. The lead consultant is a dedicated individual with lots of contacts in the sector. We rely on her decision on the consultants’ competency. She says that she thought that it was not necessary to keep documented information; however, after the event two weeks ago, which could not be solved due to the lack of documentation, she may consider in the future to plan which information we may need to keep.”
You: “How does the organisation enable the consultants you employ to maintain updated their competence on ISO 9001 and regulatory requirements?”
TQD: “As I said before, we leave that up to the lead consultant. She tells us when we need to employ more young consultants and when changes are introduced in the applicable regulations. Our regular survey shows that customers are quite satisfied with our consultants; last year’s objective of customer satisfaction was achieved. We gave a salary increase to consultants when they knew that the objectives had been achieved.”
You decide to raise a non-conformity.
To complete the non-conformity report, click on the blank section you want to complete so it is highlighted in red and then click on the applicable text from the options below. Alternatively, drag and drop the options to the appropriate blank section.
You are carrying out an annual surveillance audit at an organisation that has been certificated to ISO 9001 for two years. The organisation offers home cleaning services. The scope of the quality management system covers planning the weekly activities, providing cleaning materials, cleaning the whole property (including outdoor space) alarm installation, alarm servicing, alarm monitoring and response. The business operates from a single office and employs subcontract cleaners across the whole city.
You have just completed the opening meeting. You are interviewing the Managing Director (MD).
You: I would like to gain an understanding of how the quality management system has been supporting your business and its strategic direction.
MD: We are continuing to face difficult times. The market is extremely competitive, and customers typically look for the least expensive option when choosing home cleaning services. We have not yet seen any business benefit from our quality management system.
You: Tell me how you determine external and internal issues.
MD: We use PESTLE analysis (Political, economic, social, technological, legal, environmental).
You: Why did you not use the SWOT model (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats)?
MD: I had used PESTLE in my previous job.
You: How have the outputs from your PESTLE been used?
Select two audit trails which would lead to a determination of how the PESTLE analysis would affect the planning of a QMS to ISO 9001.
Which of the following is a responsibility of a guide in an audit?
Match the process descriptions below to the process names:
Select six tasks you would expect to be completed at the audit team meeting of a third-party audit team leader and his audit team in preparation for a Closing meeting for a four-day initial certification audit.
Which statement regarding the drafting of the audit conclusions is correct?
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