Abstract

The Audit Function Improvement Process leads to corrective and preventive action based on improved relations among auditees, auditors, management, and other stakeholders. A good audit allows stakeholders to identify and correct or prevent problems that are systemic. To do so, the audit itself and its report must be followed by a verification of the facts and then by a plan to implement and monitor corrective action. Important early steps in the Audit Function Improvement Process are to review the auditor's corrective action requests and to verify that each request explicitly indicates a system failure and has appropriate supporting evidence. This article consists of excerpts from the book, After the Quality Audit: Closing the Loop on the Audit Process, by J. P. Russell and Terry Regel.