While everyone has their own preferences (and we have not edited the responses we received), it is important to note nobody expressed a desire to have opinionated, obstinate auditors who cite phantom requirements.

Consultant Answers

Praveen Gupta of Accelper Consulting (www.accelper.com): "We were being audited for our ISO 9002 registration in 1996. During the audit, it was found that we were not analyzing customer feedback, and addressing opportuntities for improvement. During the discussion, we thought it was not necessary. However, the aditor persisted for the analysis of customer feedback and changes to our training program. We thought the auditor was too stringent in assessing compliance of our quality management system. Finally, we end up implementing the analysis and benefited significantly. I believe having a thorough auditor is a pain during the audit, but a value in the long term. So, I like auditors who challenge our clients for improving performance, rather than assessing simply for compliance. Actually, our clients have also desired to have thorough auditors as we prepare them for thorough registration audits. Our clients enjoy the successful outcome of thorough audits, instead of hollow audits."

Jerry Clark of Lean Quality Associates: "The very best Registrar Auditor that I ever had the pleasure to do business with was, Ken Moist. Ken worked for BVQI at the time (~1999) He was very efficient. He was business-like yet friendly. He knew his business very well. Ken was doing "Process auditing" before it was required by the standard. He would review the documentation on a certain topic for about 15 minutes, discuss it briefly, with me the management rep, at the time. Then he would go to the works to see how it was really done. He would ask the workers questions and record a few points and get whatever records he needed. He was always polite and respectfull of everyone in our shop. After he was satisfied he would sum up his thoughts and share them with whoever he was interviewing. I can't ever remember a disagreement, even though he would occasionaly find a part of the system that needed help. When I left that job to work for a consulting firm I lost track of him. Since then I have followed in Ken's steps to study then do auditing."

Business People Answers

Beth Ozanich of Intrado: "Our company actually switched auditors because the one we had couldn't carry on a decent conversation with our executives during opening & closing sessions. It was torture to sit through these sessions for me, and even worse for my top execs. The auditor provided a virtually useless report, which was one or two sentences saying we were doing great, attached to an invoice. Our current auditor provides interesting, intelligent feedback during opening and closing sessions, and truly understands what's important within our business, vs the noise that turns up in an audit. The execs enjoy listening and talking with her and they read the entire report that is provided after the audit."