Surveillance Audit & its process
An ISO (International Organization for Standardization) surveillance audit is an ongoing periodic review of a company’s quality management system (QMS) or information security management system (ISMS) by a certification body. The purpose of an ISO surveillance audit is to confirm that an organisation is still in compliance with ISO standards.
Frequency of ISO Surveillance Audit:
Surveillance Audit (SA) will be conducted once in a year after ISO certification. Further SA will be conducted two consecutive years after the initial certification. Finally after 2 years of SA and in the 3rd year recertification audit will be conducted by Certification Body(CB).
Once a company is Certified for ISO, the certification will be valid for 3 years.
The surveillance audit helps an organization get ready for the recertification process.
Criteria on which SA will be conducted:
Depending on the Organisation and the ISO standards which we are certified the audit criteria may entail the external auditor from CB to check the following:
- The performance and maintenance of the organization’s systems
- Preventive and corrective actions and processes
- The effectiveness of the organization’s internal auditing process
- The implementation of recommendations following the company’s internal audits
- Regular management reviews of the ISO implementation
- Customer satisfaction rates
- Updates to the company’s documentation systems.
- Any other points or process may be followed by external auditor as per standard requirements as necessary.