The ISO audit is a process of making sure that the standards are being performed by the organizations to ensure safety of products and services. There are three main types of ISO audits:
• First-party (internal)
• Second-party (external)
• Third-party (certification)
1. First-party: These are internal audits that are performed inside of an organization in order to measure the strengths and weaknesses that are associated with internal business and/or external standards. These external standards can be voluntary or compulsory, depending upon the context of the audit. The auditors that carry out first-party audit can be your own staff and should have no interest in results of the audit.
2. Second-party: These are external audits that are performed on the requests of a customer or a contracted organization on a supplier of products or services. These are carried out basically to make sure that the supplier is performing accordingly to the agreements that have been shared.
3. Third-party: These audits are performed when an organization wants to get ISO Certification. These are always performed by a Certification Body.