IATF has just updated the Covid-19 measures guidance for certification audit. It’s now at revision 2 dated 27 April 2020 with a new section for IATF16949 monitoring. IATF has clarified that the IATF16949 monitoring is NOT a remote audit like what other ISO-related schemes are performing. Instead, it is a temporary measure for ‘surveillance’ purpose when an on-site audit is not possible, e.g. due to government restrictions or country border closure. The purpose is to remotely monitor the status of organization’s QMS considering that on-site audit are not possible.
The IATF16949 monitoring is recommended to be limited to 1 day (8 hours) with a long list of information to be provided by the auditee organization. The monitoring process include routine list of information to be submitted prior the certification audit as stated in Rules 5th Edition. The certification auditor will have to review the information via remote technology method, i.e video conferencing such as Zoom, WebEx, etc. and provide a report. The conclusion of the ‘IATF monitoring report’ may include any of the following options:
- The IATF 16949 Monitoring replaces the previously required surveillance audit, or
- Additional IATF 16949 Monitoring, or
- Additional days required at the next on-site audit
The link for the updated official IATF Guidance Document is listed below.
Sounds like last resort to maintain clients’ IATF certificates which is a better option than withdrawal when extensions have been fully used without possibility for onsite audits.
I was hoping for IATF to allow remote audits but clearly IATF don’t buy into the idea and clearly have different strategy. IATF scheme is truly robust.
Yes, you are right. IATF is of the perspective that on-site audit cannot be replicated by remote audit, hence the decision to have stop gap measure via a 1-day monitoring process.