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Actual Conduct of Audit for Certification
Certification Bodies offer certification of EMS provided the
latter meets the criteria of ISO 14000 standards. These bodies are accredited by
an Accreditation Body set up by the governments of each country. The
Accreditation Body follows strict norms and controls the activities of
certification bodies. For a new company wanting to go in for certification, the
certification body requires that:
(i)
It has EMS which is operational at least for three months;
(ii)
Internal auditing is possible in the company;
(iii)
Training of the staff has taken place;
(iv)
Documents are maintained;
(v)
Management review has been conducted.
Procedure for Audit
Usually there are two stages of conducting audit:
(1)
Pre-audit stage.
(2)
Certification stage (Certification Audit)
Various steps of Pre-audit Stage are:
- Lead
auditor obtains preliminary information about company's EMS, usually through a
questionnaire.
- Lead
auditor, based on the information
received from the company, appoints audit team.
- Lead
auditor and possibly members of audit team make a pre-audit visit of the site
- After
the formation of audit team, the Lead auditor writes to the company about the
date, and duration of audit and the composition of the team. Also the company
is informed about requirements like availability of company's staff, conference
room, and guides for taking round the audit team.
- The
company is asked to send its EMS manual, so that team knows what to check?
- The
audit team examines the documents sent by company including the previous audit
reports if any. Also, the diagrams of the plant and other characteristics of
the site like stores, water supply etc. are examined as a pre audit exercise.
- The
audit team, then prepares the audit plan on the basis of the available
documentation and site details. Audit plan includes : (i) a time schedule for areas to be visited;
(ii) more documents to be examined; (iii) missing documents if any; (iv)
persons to be interviewed; (v) preparing a check list. The check list is based
on:
(a)
EMS of the company;
(b)
Legislations/regulations;
(c)
Requirements of the standard.
For example if the team wants to ensure whether legal
requirements for effluent treatment have been carried out, the checklist would
include questions like:
(a)
Whether Water Act of 1974 as amended in 1979 or 1988 has been covered.
(b)
Whether BOD levels have been monitored and so on.
The team is now ready to go to the site to start the process
of certification audit. The first step for the audit team is to hold “Opening
Meeting” with the concerned staff
of the auditee's company. In this meeting issues about the audit scope and audit
plan are discussed. After this the team undertakes the process of verification
of what exactly is happening at the site in regard to compliance of stated
objectives. This is done through:
(i) examination of products or documents;
(ii) direct observations;
(iii) conducting interviews.
The team examines:
(i) all the aspects and impacts of the
company;
(ii) whether all the regulatory requirements have
been met;
(iii) the details of processes and
identifies non conformance, if any and whether non conformances are of major or
minor types.
The next step is holding an internal meeting of the audit
team. The audit team after inspection verification, questioning, examination of
documents and all others issues given in plan and check list, holds an internal
meeting among its members. The lead auditor may also take part in this meeting.
This meeting discusses all the findings of audit team and report is prepared.
Also, the agenda for closing meeting is finalized. The last step at the site
audit is closing meeting. The audit team and the management representatives
participate at this meeting in which the report is discussed and clarifications
are sought by both the parties before the report is finalized. Also errors and
incorrect information is corrected.
It is a good practice if the auditor announces at closing
meeting whether or not the company is getting certificate for ISO 14001.
