Horizontal vs Vertical audit

One can approach and describe an organization in two different ways:

• An organization as a set of processes (the horizontal approach);
• An organization as a set of departments in the organization chart (the vertical approach) 

When planning an audit, you can think about auditing a process across many departments in an organization. For example, I can think about a process called “Test sample”:

During a horizontal audit the audit team follows the process flow across departments:

Another approach when planning an audit is about auditing all the processes used by a department, a vertical audit. For example, for the Technical Sales Department I can consider auditing five different processes:

The following material will provide you information about audits: 

• ISO 9001 Horizontal audit vs. vertical audit - https://advisera.com/9001academy/blog/2015/03/03/iso-9001-horizontal-audit-vs-vertical-audit/
• ISO 9001 – What is the ISO 9001 audit program, and how does it work? - https://advisera.com/9001academy/blog/2017/01/24/what-is-the-iso-9001-audit-program-and-how-does-it-work/
• Free online training ISO 9001:2015 Internal Auditor Course – https://advisera.com/training/iso-9001-internal-auditor-course/
• Book - ISO Internal Audit: A Plain English Guide - https://advisera.com/books/iso-internal-audit-plain-english-guide/

Hi Carlos,

Thank you for the above explanation makes good sense.

Would there be a ISO guide explaining the horizontal , vertical audits and combined audits?

Kind regards,

Rao

I cannot provide that kind of answer in this space. However, I invite you to look for book titles about auditing that include the word “process”.

For any process you chose, look into the turtle diagram:

You can audit a process and consider one or more ISO 9001:2015 clause(s) relevant from section 8. But for any process, you can use the turtle diagram and list several other clauses that you can audit:

You can find more information about auditing below:

• ISO 9001 Audit checklist: https://advisera.com/9001academy/knowledgebase/iso-9001-audit-checklist/
• How to create a checklist for an ISO 9001 internal audit for your QMS: https://advisera.com/9001academy/blog/2016/07/12/how-to-create-a-check-list-for-an-iso-9001-internal-audit-for-your-qms/
• Free webinar on demand - How to perform an ISO 9001:2015 internal audit - https://advisera.com/9001academy/webinar/how-to-perform-an-iso-9001-2015-internal-audit-free-webinar-on-demand/(includes a slide about developing checklist questions)