Introduction

The ISO 9001 Auditing Practices Group (ISO 9001 APG), a group of quality management system experts, auditors and practitioners drawn from IAF and ISO/TC 176, presented the competence requirements for ISO 9001 quality management system.

The document ‘ISO 9001 Auditing Practices Group Guidance on: Auditing Competence’, established in 2016, has been revised to expand the competence requirements throughout the ISO 9001 requirements.

The following is the content of the competence requirements of the ISO 9001 quality management system presented in this document.

Competences for ISO 9001

The competence refers to the competences needed that affects the performance and effectiveness of the quality management system.
Competence should be evaluated within all quality management system processes and not as an isolated set of requirements in a specific process.
The organization is responsible for determining the necessary competences, including qualifications for specific functions or processes, and manages competences for the quality management system according to :

1) Determination of necessary competence

The competence should be determined at all levels of the organization, including management and employees, and a team or individual competence is required in some cases.

2) Actions taken to acquire the necessary competence

The following actions may be taken to acquire and utilize the competences determined in 1).

• •  Training
• •  Hiring
• •  On the job training
• •  Mentoring
• •  Reassigning
• •  Adjusting job
• •  Subcontract, etc.

3) Evaluation of effectiveness of those actions

The organization should select and apply competence evaluation techniques that are appropriate to its determined needs. These may include role-play, peer review, observation, reviews of training and employment records or interviews.

4) Retain documented information as evidence of competency, and qualifications

The organization should be able to demonstrate the attainment and maintenance of competence of its persons through a combination of education, training, and work experience. The extent to which competences should be documented may vary depending on the context of the organization, but organizations should retain appropriate documented information as evidence when they need to ensure that these persons are competent on the basis of appropriate education, training, or experience.
The actions to acquire the required competence also should be retained appropriate documented information.

Competences for ISO 9001 quality management system certification auditor

Auditor should be able to evaluate the process of determining and managing the organization's competence for the ISO 9001 quality management system, and should be able to audit various competences required by different processes within the quality management system.

Auditors conduct sampling, observation and interviewing of employee competences, as well as evaluation of documented information, to audit whether the audited organization effectively identifies the required competences and acquires and utilizes competent personnel. These audit activities allow the auditor to arrive at a valid conclusion of the audit.

Quality management system auditors should have knowledge on quality management related tools, methods, techniques and applications, and in particular, they can acquire knowledge through the ISO 10000 family of standards developed by ISO/TC 176. Notably, ISO 10015:2019 Quality Management – Guidelines for competence management and people development provides auditors with insights that can help them understand competence management in an organization.