ISO 9001 warehouse audit checklist

It can be a massive undertaking if you are operating your warehouse. This can become incredibly daunting if you are planning to acquire or already have the ISO 9001 certificate. Although a warehousing audit is not a task that everyone looks forward to, it is essential to maintain your supply chain successfully and ensure that the quality of your products is not compromised. This article will teach about the ISO 9001 warehouse audit checklist.

What is ISO 9001, and why is it important?

The ISO 9001 standard is a quality management standard. The importance of the standard lies in the fact that it helps organisations create an effective Quality Management System (QMS) that ensures the preservation of quality and consistency of all products and services. The benefits of ISO 9001 for any business owner are that it helps to increase brand credibility, improve efficiency and reduce financial drains.

Why do warehouse owners need ISO 9001?

What sells is quality. If you can maintain the quality of your product or service, you will have repeat customers. Quality maintenance is a prime concern for a warehouse owner, as storing goods can sometimes compromise their quality. In a warehouse, goods are exposed to many variables that can threaten their quality, such as temperature fluctuations, rodents, moisture, dust and even mishandling. Inventory deterioration is a real problem in the warehousing world, and the deterioration rate of some items can even be affected by the quality of adjacent items.

The deterioration effect can be reduced by removing these tarnished items; the only method to do so is through an in-depth inspection. In this sense, warehouse owners need an inventory model that helps them highlight deteriorating items so that they can consider the effect of inspection time during the replenishment period.
Additionally, they need an appropriate model for auditing so that they can not only keep track of the inventory but also remain updated about their accounting, shipping, and logistics needs. Here, ISO 9001 is beneficial as it guides conducting audits.

This guidance can be modified as per the context of the organisation. So, warehouse owners can utilise ISO 9001 as a template to audit their warehouses. Although many warehouse auditing software is available, the advantage of utilising ISO 9001 is that it is developed by amalgamating expert advice from industry-specific leaders, implying that no crucial aspects would be overlooked during the audit.

Additionally, as ISO 9001 is highly recognisable, acquiring the certificate can boost stakeholder confidence, helping you build a better reputation across the supply chain.

What is a warehouse audit?

A warehouse audit is a broad terminology that is utilised to describe the auditing of any part of the warehouse. It includes inventory audits, policy and procedure audits, shipping and logistics audits, and accounting audits.

Typically, warehouse audits do not follow a strict schedule where you must conduct them daily or weekly. Still, they can be modified as per the nature of the items stored in the warehouse and can be done monthly or quarterly.

ISO 9001 warehouse audit checklist

The ISO 9001 standard suggests that you audit your warehouse by utilising some auditing best practices, including:
• Defining the need for the audit: The ISO 9001 standard believes that identifying the management system’s scope and understanding the organisation’s context constantly improves any operation’s effectiveness. Hence, every warehouse audit must begin by determining what should be audited. So, for example, a public company will focus on inventory valuation for disclosing financial data, whereas a private company will emphasise the efficiency of operations.
• Measure physical inventory: With the help of proper inventory tracking, you can highlight discrepancies, going on to identify the root causes of these issues, helping to preserve the quality of your goods.

• Keeping an eye on the operations: To ensure compliance and maximum efficiency, it is always beneficial to observe warehouse inventory processes, order fulfilment, warehouse quality control, and so on. Being vigilant with your operations will ensure that compliance is achieved and that your equipment is always maintained.
• Talk to your employees: Employee engagement is one of the core requirements of ISO 9001. The standard understands that employees are on the frontline of your operations. Therefore, they are the first to identify any issues and will be the first to suggest the most innovative yet feasible solutions. Use every opportunity to speak to your employees, learn about your operations and understand how they can be improved. Create a safe environment in your organisation. Your employees will be able to speak freely, not fearing any repercussions, and you will be able to understand which policies are not working in real life.
• Evaluate audited results: Once you have collected audit data, you can identify the processes or policies that need to be modified. You can design changes by incorporating recommendations from an iso 9001 consultant, the standard, or your employees. Taking input from critical stakeholders would also help you fix these issues. Once you have implemented the changes, it is time to restart the processes.
• Repeat everything: Warehouse audits aim to keep your operations efficient and to run. Repeat everything once you are done with one cycle to gauge the effectiveness of your implemented changes.

Conclusion

ISO 9001 provides a template to warehouse owners that can be modified per their organisation’s needs. This template allows them to conduct audits to keep their operations running efficiently. You can contact us to learn more about iso internal auditor certification in Australia.