The internal audit process is a ratio that relates the relative importance of the findings or results of the audit. To keep things easy to understand, let's break the findings down into three categories and they are not major, minor and opportunity for improvement. The three categories are effectiveness, improvThe purpose of internal audits is to continually improve the management system. When I refer to management system, I mean quality, environmental or your business management system. In either case the internal audit should be a intricate part of the management system you are utilizing. Most often the internal audit process or function is under utilized and viewed as a necessary evil in order to meet the requirements of a quality standard.

The time constraints on individuals makes it harder to free employees up to plan, execute, document and follow up an internal audit. The effort to transition internal audits to improvement based, does not make that issue any easier. In order to conduct a meaningful, effective audit that promotes and facilitates continual improvement, the auditor must spend an adequate time preparing. The preparation of the audit dictates how effective it will be.

If we want to improve a process, what is the first step? In all my years as a quality practitioner, I have heard and deeply believed that the first step to improvement is measuring. If something is not measured, you should not expect to improve it. The first step to improving the internal audit process is to measure it. How do you measure it? The internal audit process is a ratio that relates the relative importance of the findings or results of the audit. To keep things easy to understand, let's break the findings down into three categories and they are not major, minor and opportunity for improvement. The three categories are effectiveness, improve

dit process or function is under utilized and viewed as a necessary evil in order to meet the requirements of a quality standard.

The time constraints on individuals makes it harder to free employees up to plan, execute, document and follow up an internal audit. The effort to transition internal audits to improvement based, does not make that issue any easier. In order to conduct a meaningful, effective audit that promotes and facilitates continual improvement, the auditor must spend an adequate time preparing. The preparation of the audit dictates how effective it will be.

If we want to improve a process, what is the first step? In all my years as a quality practitioner, I have heard and deeply believed that the first step to improvement is measuring. If something is not measured, you should not expect to improve it. The first step to improving the internal audit process is to measure it. How do you measure it? The internal audit process is a ratio that relates the relative importance of the findings or results of the audit. To keep things easy to understand, let's break the findings down into three categories and they are not major, minor and opportunity for improvement. The three categories are effectiveness, improv

mprovement based, does not make that issue any easier. In order to conduct a meaningful, effective audit that promotes and facilitates continual improvement, the auditor must spend an adequate time preparing. The preparation of the audit dictates how effective it will be.

If we want to improve a process, what is the first step? In all my years as a quality practitioner, I have heard and deeply believed that the first step to improvement is measuring. If something is not measured, you should not expect to improve it. The first step to improving the internal audit process is to measure it. How do you measure it? The internal audit process is a ratio that relates the relative importance of the findings or results of the audit. To keep things easy to understand, let's break the findings down into three categories and they are not major, minor and opportunity for improvement. The three categories are effectiveness, improv

hat is the first step? In all my years as a quality practitioner, I have heard and deeply believed that the first step to improvement is measuring. If something is not measured, you should not expect to improve it. The first step to improving the internal audit process is to measure it. How do you measure it? The internal audit process is a ratio that relates the relative importance of the findings or results of the audit. To keep things easy to understand, let's break the findings down into three categories and they are not major, minor and opportunity for improvement. The three categories are effectiveness, improv The internal audit process is a ratio that relates the relative importance of the findings or results of the audit. To keep things easy to understand, let's break the findings down into three categories and they are not major, minor and opportunity for improvement. The three categories are effectiveness, improvement and compliance.

Describing these three factors with an equation we have the following:

V = (E + 2I)/C

Where V = the audit value, E= the number of findings associated with effectiveness, I= the number of findings associated with improvement and C= the number of compliance related findings. The resulting equation will yield a value or index you can use as a reference measurement, the higher the index the more improvement focused the audit activity is, the lower the number reflects a focus on standard compliance.

I am not suggesting to disregard compliance to a standard, I am contending the focus of the audit should be improvement, effectiveness and compliance. Too often compliance is the single biggest focus when conducting audits. There is not much value in finding out that an employee did not complete a form correctly on a given day. An isolated one time event is useless as a tool to improve a management system. The point to remember is that whatever the auditors are focused on is what they will find. If the focus is on compliance issues, that is what is found. It's similar to going bass fishing, you may catch a pike, but for the most part you will tend to catch more bass.

The effectiveness factor r