RIAI Good Practice Guide Quality Scheme Equals ISO 9001 Quality Management International Standard

• By Cooney Architects

Today, we were given our first training course by Marjorie Brooker (BSC MBA FCIOB) of Brooker Consulting  on Internal Quality Audits.

We are in the process of implementing the RIAI Good Practice Quality Scheme (which equals ISO 9001:2015 Quality Management International Standard) and internal auditing will be an on-going process of this QMS system.

The first half lecture was about introducing quality auditing.

What is quality management?

“Co-ordinated activities to direct and control an organisation with regard to quality.”

(Note: Direction and control with regard to quality generally includes the establishment of a quality policy and quality objects, quality planning, quality control, quality assurance and quality improvement)

{NB: Quality Management also includes Communication.}

What is quality assurance?

“All those planned and systematic actions necessary to provide adequate confidence that a product or service will satisfy given requirements for  quality”.

What is quality?

“The totality of features and characteristics of a product or service that bear on its ability to satisfy stated or implied needs.”

What is quality auditing?

A systematic and independent examination to determine whether activities and related results comply with planned arrangements and whether these arrangements are implemented effectively and are suitable to achieve objectives.

Auditing is-

*An independent means of checking that the processes are being carried out correctly and effectively, as per written procedures, formal quality standard, and the Client’s requirements, i.e. checking that the organization is “doing what it says it does”, doing what it promised the Client and in accordance with all legislation.

*A discipline devoted to the establishment of facts. It is not an inquisition of people! Auditing is also a risk management tool.

*Report constructively to achieve maximum improvement to the management system.

During the second half of the session we had to quality audit each other.