What is an external audit?

External audits are audits carried out by employees from outside the organization. For example, these can be employees of a certification company or a customer or supplier. Product, procedure, process and also system audits can be external audits. The external audit defines a quality management instrument for objectively checking compliance with standards, requirements and conditions for certification. External, third-party certification companies are authorized to issue audits. In external process audits, such as supplier audits, the company checks the supplier’s management system on the basis of agreed quality standards.

• External system audit: External certification companies inspect quality management systems according to standardized inspection processes. They are authorized to audit at certain intervals in order to carry out a value-neutral inspection of the quality management system on the basis of prescribed standards, requirements and conditions. A certificate is a neutral confirmation of compliance with certain quality standards in relation to the quality management system. An external system audit is required to obtain DIN EN ISO 9001 certification.

• External process audit: External process audits involve two parties. The auditor here is often the quality management representative in the company, who audits an external partner. External partners, customers or suppliers, audit on the basis of jointly agreed quality standards. Certain processes are audited on the supplier side. These quality assurance agreements are usually collected by internal auditors in order to define a common quality denominator.

 

Further useful information

How to carry out mobile and efficient audits with Testify.

https://www.testify.io/anwendungsfaelle/audit-software/

Relevant blog post

https://www.testify.io/remote-audits-leitfaden/