A TÜV NORD team from Bulgaria and Morocco has audited Bureau Veritas in Cameroon.
A TÜV NORD team from Bulgaria and Morocco has audited Bureau Veritas in Cameroon. To save time and money on all sides, the audit was executed entirely remotely by a Skype meeting in combination with e-mail correspondence, data exchange as well as video conferences.
Stoyan Yotov, General Manager of TÜV NORD Bulgaria, and TÜV NORD CERT auditor Fouzia Wadrahmane from Morocco spent two days auditing the local Bureau Veritas management, quality officers and HR executives. The goal was to establish the compliance of the management system of Bureau Veritas with the requirements of the ISO 9001:2015, ISO 14001:2015 and OHSAS 18001:2007 standards. “It was a very good, full-on audit,” says Stoyan Yotov. In the audit, videos were transmitted from the local food laboratory to the auditors. One of the happy side effects he mentioned was the significant savings achieved in terms of travel costs and time.
Remote audits have been in the spotlight of TÜV NORD Industrial Services business unit’s Innovation Corporate Centre for quite a while now. Innovation Manager Siham Bahkani coordinated the project and carried out pilot projects to prepare for the planning, organisation, technical management and documentation of remote audits. “We’re still keen to collect findings to help us establish a concept for remote auditing,” says Ms Bahkani.
Stoyan Yotov meanwhile praised the new opportunities offered by video conferences, video calling and data exchange by e-mail. “The audit has to be well prepared, but the same goes for audits conducted on site. Being linked through a video conference comes close to meeting in the same room, and with immediate data exchange by e-mail it’s like looking at the same sheet of paper – even though you’re thousands of miles away. What really helps is not having to waste time flying.” Nevertheless, even though remote audits are a successful instrument, the intention is still to visit the customer sites in person at least once a year. “But you can plan these visits well in advance.”