How to Become a Certified ISO 9001 Lead Auditor

The role of a lead auditor is critical to the success of the certification audit. When a certification body sends an audit team to evaluate an ISO 9001:2015 Quality Management System, the audit team is led by a lead auditor. This critical auditor has additional responsibilities above and beyond the other auditors on the team, such as assigning audit tasks and rendering final judgment on non-conformances.

The essential steps to becoming an ISO 9001 Lead Auditor

You must take some steps if you want to become a lead auditor.

Ensure good prior experience. You'll want to get experience in a job where you'll be responsible for understanding Quality Management System processes and maybe undertaking internal audits of those systems. This expertise will aid you in understanding diverse process implementations as an auditor. If you're conducting process audits, you must understand how processes work. Process audits look at the whole process rather than just the written documents.

Attend ISO 9001 training for lead auditors. Not only must you attend the courses, but you must also pass the lead auditor exam. This means you must attend the entire course, usually four to five days long, because you will not be able to write the exam if you skip any of it. Passing this course is a requirement for certifying bodies to consider you for a position as an auditor.

Look for a certification organization. You can discover a certification body that needs certification auditors once you meet the standards mentioned above, but simply locating a certification body will not suffice. Before becoming a lead auditor, each certification body will require you to complete training, such as observing audits and then being a member of the audit team. Because this is distinct from any internal auditing you've done, you'll need to obtain experience as a certified auditor before you can lead the team.