Committee Accreditation Auditing Practices Group

Accreditation Auditing Practices Group

Welcome to the website of the Accreditation Auditing Practices Group.

The Accreditation Auditing Practices Group is constituted as an informal group of accreditation experts, auditors and practitioners, drawn from the ISO Policy Committee for Conformity Assessment (ISO/CASCO), the ISO Technical Committee 176 Quality Management and Quality Assurance (ISO/TC 176) and the International Accreditation Forum (IAF). It was established following the success of the ISO 9001 Auditing Practices Group, and following a request from the IAF's Technical Committee.

The Co-Conveners of the Accreditation Auditing Practices Group are Mr B.Venkataraman (Director, NABCB, India) and Mr A Ezrakhovich (Managing Director, AEConformity Pty Ltd, Australia).

This website has been established as an on-line source of papers and presentations on accreditation auditing practices, against the International Standards and Guides produced by ISO/CASCO. The ideas, examples and explanations given reflect the process-based approach that is essential for the accreditation of Certification/Registration Bodies (CRBs) that are themselves applying such an approach in the certification of organizations to ISO 9001:2000 Quality management systems - Requirements.

The website is primarily aimed at accreditation bodies and their auditors, as well as certification/registration bodies and their auditors.

The papers and presentations that make up the content of this website are not definitive. They reflect a number of different views in accreditation auditing. As such, their content may not always be consistent. It is not intended that the website's content will be used as specified requirements, an industry benchmark, or as criteria that all accreditation bodies, accreditation auditors, or practitioners have to follow.

The items listed under "Accreditation auditing topics" below have papers and presentations associated with them. Simply click on one of the links to view and download the relevant document.

Feedback from users will be used by the Accreditation Auditing Practices Group to determine whether additional guidance documents should be developed, or if these current ones should be revised. Comments on the papers or presentations can be sent to the following email address: charles.corrie@bsigroup.com.

Accreditation auditing topics

Introduction to the Accreditation Auditing Practices Group

The witnessing of CAB audits by an accreditation body

"Process Approach" based accreditation audits

Auditor Code of Conduct and Ethics

Criteria for Competence of AB Assessors and Assessment Teams

Auditing Accreditation Scopes

Auditing the CAB Impartiality Committtee

Auditing Certification Body management systems based on ISO 9001:2000 (Option 1from clause 10 of ISO/IEC 17021)

Deployment of the Expected Outcomes Documents

Zip file of all the above documents

[TRANSLATIONS - Links to translations of the above documents]

Disclaimer

The contributions on this website have not been subject to an endorsement process by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), the ISO Policy Committee for Conformity Assessment, the ISO Technical Committee 176 or the International Accreditation Forum (IAF).

The information contained on this website is available to the public for educational and communication purposes and the Accreditation Auditing Practice Group does not take responsibility for any errors, omissions or other liabilities that may arise from the provision or subsequent use of such information.

Abbreviations and Definitions

On this website the following abbreviations are commonly used:
Auditee = the organization being audited
CAB = Conformity Assessment Body
NCR = Non-conformity report
QMS = Quality management system

Further reading:

ISO and IAF have published several documents related to accreditation auditing, which are listed below. These are available from ISO or the IAF, or from your national ISO member body or IAF member body.

[1] ISO 9000:2005, Quality management systems – Fundamentals and vocabulary

[2] ISO 9001:2008, Quality management systems – Requirements

[3] ISO 9004:2009 Managing for the sustained success of an organization – A quality management approach

[4] "ISO 9000 Introduction and Support Package" guidance documents from ISO/TC 176 SC2:

Guidance on ISO 9001 Sub-clause 1.2 'Application'

Guidance on the Documentation Requirements of ISO 9001

Guidance on some of the frequently used words found in the ISO 9000 family of standards

Guidance on the Concept and Use of the Process Approach for management systems

Guidance on Outsourced Processes

(These may be downloaded, for free, from the ISO or www.iso.org/tc176/sc2/public web sites)

[5] “ISO/IEC 17000:2004 Conformity assessment -- Vocabulary and general principles”

[6] ISO 19011:2002, Guidelines for quality and/or environmental management systems auditing

[7] ISO/IEC Guide 62, General requirements for bodies operating assessment and certification/registration of quality systems

[8] IAF Guidance on ISO Guide 62

(This may be downloaded, for free, from the IAF web site)

[9] “ISO/IEC 17021:2011 Conformity assessment -- Requirements for bodies providing audit and certification of management systems”

[10] “ISO Handbook:2010, ISO 9001 for small businesses – What to do, Advice from ISO/TC 176”

Useful web sites:

http://www.iaf.nu/ International Accreditation Forum (IAF)
http://www.iso.org/ International Organization for Standardization (ISO)
http://www.tc176.org/ ISO Technical Committee no. 176, Quality Management and Quality Assurance (ISO/TC 176)
www.iso.org/tc176/sc2/public ISO/TC 176, Sub-committee no.2, Quality Systems (ISO/TC 176/SC 2)

Document Revision Status Information

Therefore and unless otherwise specified, no part of these ISO / IAF publications may be reproduced or utilized (including reproduction in whole or in part to another Internet site), in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, microfilm, scanning, etc., without permission in writing from the publishers.

Requests should be addressed to:

ISO Copyright Office
1, Ch.de la Voie-Creuse
Case postale 56
CH-1211 Geneva 20
Switzerland
Fax +41 22 749 09 47
E-mail copyright@iso.org

IAF Corporate Secretary
53 Manuka Circle
Cherrybrook
NSW 2126
Australia
Fax: +612 9481 7343
E-mail secretary1@iaf.nu