ISO-9001-Lead-Auditor Practice Questions

ABC is a fast food shop that receives orders by phone or the internet. The normal menu includes 15 different types of hamburgers; however, in the

last two days, due to a shortage of a special type of meat, they can only prepare six of the 15 varieties.

You are performing a third-party audit of ABC; you observed that the menu offering food on the website is still the normal one, with 15 different

hamburgers. During a 30-minute period, you observed several customers reluctantly accepting other than the hamburger they preferred. You decided

to raise the following nonconformity as follows:

"There is evidence that ABC has not reviewed the ability to provide customers the offered products".

The restaurant manager does not accept the nonconformity. She says that ABC had an extensive training programme for all personnel, which you have already seen when auditing Human Resources. This shortage of some hamburgers cannot be considered a management system failure.

Which one would be your answer from the following options?

Which of the following subjects should an auditor discuss when communicating with the auditee’s top management?

Whistlekleen is a national dry cleaning and laundry company with 50 shops. You are conducting a surveillance audit of the Head Office and are sampling customer complaints. 80% of complaints originate from five shops in the same region. Most of these complaints relate to customer laundry not being cleaned as customers require. The Quality Manager tells you that these are the oldest shops in the company. The cleaning equipment needs replacing but the company cannot afford it now. You learn that the shop managers were told to dismiss most of the complaints because of the poor quality of the laundered materials.

On raising the matter with senior management, you are told that there are plans to replace the equipment in these shops over the next five years.

You raised a nonconformity against clause 8.5.1 of ISO 9001.

Based on the scenario, select the three options which best describe the evidence for raising such a nonconformity.

Scenario 1: AL-TAX is a company located in California which provides financial and accounting services. The company manages the finances of 17 companies and now is seeking to expand their business even more The CEO of AL-TAX, Liam Durham, claims that the company seeks to provide top-notch services to their clients Recently, there were a number of new companies interested in the services provided by AL-TAX.

In order to fulfill the requirements of new clients and further improve quality, Liam discussed with other top management members the idea of implementing a quality management system (QMS) based on ISO 9001. During the discussion, one of the members of the top management claimed that the size of the company was not large enough to implement a QMS. In addition, another member claimed that a QMS is not applicable for the industry in which AL TAX operates. However, as the majority of the members voted for implementing the QMS. Liam initiated the project.

Initially, Liam hired an experienced consultant to help AL-TAX with the implementation of the QMS. They started by planning and developing processes and methods for the establishment of a QMS based on ISO 9001. Furthermore, they ensured that the quality policy is appropriate to the purpose and context of AL TAX and communicated to all employees. In addition, they also tried to follow a process that enables the company to ensure that its processes are adequately resourced and managed, and that improvement opportunities are determined.

During the implementation process, Liam and the consultant focused on determining the factors that could hinder their processes from achieving the planned results and implemented some preventive actions in order to avoid potential nonconformities Six months after the implementation of the QMS. AL-TAX conducted an internal audit. The results of the internal audit revealed that the QMS was not fulfilling all requirements of ISO 9001. A serious issue was that the QMS was not fulfilling the requirements of clause 5.1.2 Customer focus and had also not ensured clear and open communication channels with suppliers.

Throughout the next three years, the company worked on improving its QMS through the PDCA cycle in the respective areas. To assess the effectiveness of the intended actions while causing minimal disruptions, they tested changes that need to be made on a smaller scale. After taking necessary actions, AL-TAX decided to apply for certification against ISO 9001.

Based on the scenario above, answer the following question:

As stated in scenario 1, AL-TAX tested the effectiveness of the intended actions as part of the QMS improvement through the PDCA cycle. Which stage did it perform in this case?

During the opening meeting of a third-party audit of a pharmaceutical organisation (CD9000) with seven COVID-19 testing laboratories in various terminals at a major international airport, you are asked if you could

visit all laboratories. As audit team leader you say that, based on sampling criteria, you had planned to audit only three of them as CD9000 is a multisite organisation.

They tell you that they have worked so hard to get ready for the audit that the supervisors of those laboratories that would not be visited would be quite disappointed.

The following are possible responses to the request, select the two best responses:

In the context of a third-party audit, match the event with the responsibility for conducting it.

During an internal audit, it was discovered that the calibration of a spectrometer used daily for production had expired, causing a nonconformance under Clause 7.1.5.2 of ISO 9001:2015. The root cause was the organization not considering the risk of the calibration provider leaving the country.

Which corrective action is the best one?

An audit team leader arrives at a printing organisation to carry out a Stage 2 audit for a certification body. At a meeting with the Quality Manager, she is told that they have won their biggest contract from a computer manufacturer to print and compile computer documentation packages. They have leased the unit next door for space reasons but have never worked in this sector before. The Quality Manager wants the ISO 9001 certificate to cover the new contract.

During the audit, a team member finds that a number of print jobs have been rejected by several clients over a number of months due to spelling errors in the print run. The Print Manager blames the new employees they had to take on because of a big contract. The auditor raises a nonconformance against clause 10.2.1.b of ISO 9001.

Which one of the evidence statements would support this finding?

Whistlekleen is a national dry cleaning and laundry company with 50 shops. You are conducting a surveillance audit of the Head Office and are sampling customer complaints. You find that 80% of complaints originate from five shops in the same region. Most of these complaints relate to damage to customer laundry. The Quality Manager tells you that these are the oldest shops in the company. The cleaning equipment needs replacing but the company cannot afford it at the moment. You learn

that the shop managers were told to dismiss most of the claims on the basis of the poor quality of the laundered materials.

On raising the matter with senior management, you are told that there are plans to replace the equipment in these shops over the next five years.

When reviewing the customer complaint file, you find that the organisation is facing a legal dispute with a customer over damage to an expensive cashmere coat.

Select the best option for how this should be handled by the Quality Management System.

One of the conflict resolution techniques is toning down. How is the conflict managed in that case?