What is Audit?

The audit checks whether the processes, requirements and guidelines meet the required standards. This audit process is often performed as part of quality management. Audits are performed by a specially trained auditor.

There are two types of audits in quality management: In dynamic quality assurance (or quality management), audits have an extended meaning: they record development trends and provide initiators of change with important feedback on the effectiveness of the measures taken. In the field of static quality management, audits are of an auditing nature, as they provide evidence of the conclusion of contracts. Therefore, they are performed only once per test cycle.

The importance of these accompanying audits increases with the number of repetitions with which an identical catalog of questions is presented to the same affected group on the same topic. The specifications are contained in “DIN EN ISO 19011, Guidelines for the auditing of management systems”.

There are different types of audits, which are distinguished according to the subject of the audit:

• Financial audit (auditing financial figures according to accounting principles)

• Compliance audit (verification of compliance with a set of rules, questionnaire)

• Performance audit (also called legality audit; objective and systematic review of the achievement of objectives/effectiveness and whether the resources used for this purpose were used economically and efficiently)

• System audit (examination of the management system)

• Process audit (examination of individual processes)

• Process audit (synonymous with process audit or for looking at processes).

• Product audit (within the framework of customer expectations, the product is considered)

• Project audit (progress monitoring of a project)

• Media audit (checking the consistency of media activities)

A quality audit is usually divided into the following phases:

• Preparation of the audit and preparation of the audit plan
• Implementation of auditing based on the audit plan
• Final documentation in the form of an audit report with protocol, catalog of measures, etc.
• Follow-up based on the documentation including implementation of the imposed measures