Scenario 6: Davis Clinic (DC) is an American medical center focused on integrated health care. Since its establishment DC was committed to providing qualitative services for its clients, which is the reason why the company decided to implement a quality management system (QMS) based on ISO 9001. After a year of having an active QMS in place, DC applied for a certification audit.
A team of five auditors, from a well-known certification body, was selected to conduct the audit. Eva was appointed as the audit team leader. After three days of auditing, the team gathered to review and examine their findings. They also discussed the audit findings with DC's top management and then drafted the audit conclusions.
In the closing meeting, which was held between the audit team and the top management of DC. Eva presented two nonconformities that were detected during the audit. Eva stated that the company did not retain documented information regarding its outsourced services for an analysis laboratory and regarding the conducted management reviews. During the closing meeting, the audit team required from DCs top management to come up with corrective action plans within two weeks. Although the top management did not agree with the audit findings, the audit team insisted that the auditee must submit corrective actions within the given time frame in order for the audit activities to continue.
Once the action plans were evaluated, the audit team began preparing the audit report. Eva required from the team to provide accurate descriptions of the audit findings and the audit conclusions. The report was then distributed to all the interested parties involved in the audit, including the certification body Based on the report, the certification body together with Eva, as the audit team leader, made the certification decision.
Based on the scenario above, answer the following question:
Why is it important to discuss the audit findings with DC’s top management prior to the closing meeting and the submission of the final audit report?
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:
Scenario 7 states that Sean planned audit activities on his own. Is this acceptable?
You are conducting an ISO 9001 audit of a Materials Recycling Facility (MRF). The organisation processes
waste plastics into raw materials for plastic bottle manufacturers. You reach the manual picking line where operators are removing contaminant materials from incoming products, such as plastic bags, plastic film and badly contaminated items that would compromise the recycling process. You interview the line supervisor.
You: "Why are these plastic items being rejected at this stage?"
Auditee: "They do not meet our processing standards."
You: "What is the reason for that?"
Auditee: "These items are likely to damage the machinery down the line. They can also compromise our
quality standards. We need to protect our reputation for good quality output materials."
You: "What happens to the rejected items?"
Auditee: "Some get melted down in another process later on and some are disposed of as waste products that cannot be recycled."
You: "What happens to the waste products?"
Auditee: "I'm not sure. I suppose they go to landfill."
Which two. of the following actions would you take to investigate further?
What should the auditor document during the Stage 1 audit?