third-party audits, second-.party audits, and first-party audits.
AQS Auditing Services
In Management system standards there are three main categories of audits, which depend on the relationship between the auditor and the person being audited. These are called third-party audits, second-. party audits, and first-party audits.
Third Party Audit:
A third-party audit occurs when a company has decided that they want to create a management system that conforms to a standard set of requirements, such as ISO 9001, ISO 14001 & ISO 45001 and hire an independent company to perform an audit to verify that the company has succeeded in this endeavor. These independent companies are called certification bodies or registrars, AQS has tie up with most reputable certification bodies and we are conducting audits to compare and verify that the Management system standards meets all the requirements of the chosen standard, and continues to meet the requirements on an ongoing basis. Then AQS provide certification to companies that they approve. This can be used to give our customers of the certified company confidence that the ISO Standards meets the requirements of the chosen standard
Second Party Audits:
A second-party audit is when a company performs an audit of a Supplier to ensure that they are meeting the requirements specified in the contract. These requirements may include special control over certain processes, requirements on traceability of parts, requirements for special cleanliness standards, requirements for specific documentation, or any of a host of other items of special interest to that customer. These audits can be done onsite by reviewing the processes or even off-site by reviewing documents submitted by the Supplier. The customer can audit all or part of the contract- whatever they see a need to audit. It is important to understand that a second-party audit is between the customer and the Supplier and has nothing to do with becoming certified.
Many people thought that second-party audits would not be necessary once a company is certified to ISO Standards by a certification body, but this is not necessarily true. Even if you are certified by a third-party audit, any of your customers may still want to perform a second-party audit to look at elements of their contract, especially if these elements are not the same as the ISO Standards requirements. This is not required by all customers, and is not required to be certified to ISO Standards by a certification body, but it is specified in some contracts and there are some customers that choose to perform these audits. AQS have specialized auditors for second party audit/vendor audit/supplier audit, please contact AQS for enquiry.
First Party Audit:
First-party audits are often called internal audits. This is the process organization itself will audit a process or set of processes in the quality management system to ensure it meets the procedure that the company has specified. AQS will help you out to conduct First Party/ Internal Audit. This type of audit AQS is focused not only on whether your Company processes meet the requirements of a standard, but all rules the company has set for itself. The audit will look for problem areas, areas where processes do not align with each other, opportunities for improvement, and the effectiveness of the Management System Standards.