My Reading on ASQ CQA HB Part III

Part IIIA
Auditing Tools
An auditor must be able to comprehend the materials presented during an audit. Some industries and market
sectors have their own language and ways of conducting business. An auditor may gain this knowledge through
a combination of work experience and training. For example, the knowledge and experience needed for
auditing a medical facility may be very different from what is needed to audit an education facility or assembly
plant. Beyond the nominal education requirements, an auditor needs to understand improvement tools and
techniques to be an effective auditor. Table 10.2 gives example data analysis tools and improvement tools and
programs. Part V of the handbook discusses the tools and techniques that a quality auditor should know. These
same topics and tools (such as descriptive statistics, sampling, flowcharts, and diagrams) are relevant to many
other types of auditing.
Environmental auditors need to know common environmental tools such as:
• mass balance,
• risk assessment and probabilities,
• contingency planning,
• ecosystems, abatement (reduction, ending), and so on.
Additional value- added training is discussed in Part IV, “Audit Program Management and Business
Applications.”
Charlie Chong/ Fion Zhang