Articles

Why We Conduct Pre Audit Planning

by Peter Theobald

One of the stated goals of NQA is to be

'Your Partner for Organizational Success'.

Like most corporate strategies or mission statements these are fine words and help to convey the customer focused approach that has always been at the very heart of the NQA philosophy. But the task with which we (NQA) are faced with is this, 'how do we take this objective and make it into meaningful actions that positively impact our customer's experience on a daily basis'?

This question has lead NQA to conduct a major review of all its customer interactions to ascertain in what ways we can improve and enhance this critical process interface.

One of the areas on which we are focusing upon is how to improve the audit planning activity. Through customer feedback and audit report analysis NQA identified that by enhancing this area it would be possible to better focus our audit activities upon process areas within an organization that may experiencing increased risk to the continuing integrity of the management system.

This could be because of any of a number of different reasons such as;

• The launch of a new production line or service type
• The introduction of new technology or legislation
• The outsourcing of additional activities
• The utilization of additional locations

To help facilitate this, starting in October 2009 each identified contact within our system will be receiving an email from our database 20 days prior to the audit activity taking place. This email will come from your dedicated CSR (Customer Support Representative) and will be copied to the lead auditor for the upcoming audit. This communication will give the client contact an opportunity to inform NQA of any major changes to the company size/structure and/or management system that the auditor may need to be aware of.

This process is not being introduced to find faults or to increase the number of identified issues, we at NQA strongly believe that by highlighting areas of change, NQA can partner with organizations to help your organization ensure that these areas of change are properly aligned within your management system and support your achieving organizational success. A key component of this strategy is to ensure that we are effectively communicating with you our customer to align our efforts with yours.

If during this activity any changes that may impact the audit are identified, these can then be incorporated into the audit planning process, so that additional emphasis can be placed upon these areas during the audit.

We hope you will all take a few moments to respond to the email, it is our belief that this will help your auditor create a more meaningful audit plan for your company. So don't forget to copy your response to both the auditor as well as your CSR so everyone has the latest and greatest information.