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There is a lot of training included when implementing a Quality Management System (QMS) indicated by the requirements of IRCA Approved ISO 9001 Course, and many organizations offer many different types of training for those who will be involved in the QMS. If you look even quickly, you will find implementation training, ISO 9001 Lead Auditor Training, ISO 9001:2015 internal auditor training, and ISO 9001:2015 lead auditor training among the different contributions out there, however that is true for you?
If you are planning to be one of the people doing audits of the QMS processes, then you will be considering either the internal auditor or lead auditor training, but what is the difference? The following is some data on what is involved in an ISO 9001 Lead Auditor Course so that you can assess if this is what you need.
ISO 9001 training comes in several varieties, from training to help support the creation and maintenance of a quality management system for a company, to training for individuals who will be certified for auditing the QMS of companies for certification bodies. Here is a listing of some of the most popular ISO 9001 training courses:
ISO 9001 Lead Auditor Course
The ISO 9001 lead auditor training is a four- to five-day training course and includes a test at the end to verify knowledge and competence of the attendee. The course will focus on understanding the ISO 9001 quality management system standard and using the ISO 9001 standard for auditing management systems to assess company processes against these requirements. Role play of different auditing situations will often form part of this training.
The course can only be presented by a company that itself has been certified to present ISO 9001 lead auditor training, and it is only with a certified course that a participant can attain certification as an ISO 9001 Lead Auditor. After this, it is possible to be hired by a certification body (companies that can grant ISO 9001 certification to companies) to audit a company’s Quality Management System against the ISO 9001 standard. This course is often used by implementers of ISO 9001 in order to learn more about the standard and to find out the criteria that will be used by the certification bodies.
How long will it take?
Most lead auditor training is scheduled for five entire days, although some training will differ. In general, the first two days of lead auditor training will be focused on going through each clause of the standard, and explaining in detail what is involved in implementing the clause and what to look for to ensure that the clause is adequately and effectively implemented. The next two-and-a-half days will be focused on how to audit, including audit planning, audit preparation, opening meetings, conducting the audit, following the audit trail, closing meetings, recording a nonconformance, audit reporting, and follow-up.
What is involved?
This second portion of the training will often include role-playing exercises to give the participants some experience in auditing to see what it feels like, and to identify some potential audit pitfalls. This part of the ISO 9001 Lead Auditor Training depends on Guidelines for auditing management systems, which gives “guidance on auditing management systems, including the principles of auditing, managing an audit program, and conducting management system audits, as well as guidance on the evaluation of competence of individuals involved in the audit process, including the person managing the audit program, auditors and audit teams.” The final day will end with a test to demonstrate that the participant has understood the information presented, and will include practical questions like identifying a nonconformance from provided data and writing the corrective action request.
For a comparison and cost of different types of training available for ISO, as opposed to lead auditor training, see this article in the ISO Lead Auditor With Lowest Price in Indonesia.
Who is lead auditor training designed for?
It is important to note that even though training times may vary from provider to provider, the content will stay very much the same. The reason for this is that lead auditor training is required for those who will become an auditor for the certification bodies like IAS that audit individual companies and certify that the QMS is in compliance with IRCA ISO 9001 Lead Auditor Training. For this reason, the lead auditor training must be accredited by an oversight body that provides accreditation to auditors and certification bodies in the country that the training is provided.
In this way, the lead auditor training is inherently designed for certification body auditors and will have this overall flavor of how to deal with a large company-wide audit of all procedures with many auditors, as opposed to a more spread-out audit program that might be found within a company. The audit training will likewise include numerous formal elements, such as a formal opening and closing meetings, which may not be rehearsed within a company. Training is not all that a certification body auditor needs (there is also an aspect of experience doing audits that is required), but it is one element that is needed.
For what reason might you benefit from lead auditor training as an internal auditor?
The fact is lead auditor training is designed for those who are intended to be outside of an organization, it can also benefit internal auditors as well. Internal auditors still need to understand the IRCA Approved ISO 9001 Course requirements in detail, and the principles and practices of auditing are much the same for internal auditors. In addition, the training can give you an idea of how the certification body auditors that will be coming to your company were trained and how they have been instructed to audit.
However, the ISO 9001 Lead Auditor Course is much more expensive than the much shorter internal auditor course, so it is important that you will see benefits from the additional expense and time. Make sure that this is what you want, and need, before signing up.
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