3rd Party Audit Bodies for sister companies

Hello everyone,

Can somebody recommend whether it is better for two sister companies to have the same 3rd party audit body or choose a different agency. We currently get SAI GLOBAL audited and have been doing it for 3 years, and our sister company is having their first audit and considering to start with AIB agency. I believe it would be easier on us to have the same agency since we already know the standars, however would it be a good idea to try AIB and compare to see which one we like best?

I will appreciate any advice!

Hi Ange,
What standard is this for?
For some you may find a bit of benefit to sharing the same audit body. As an example we were recently purchased by a much larger business and for ISO9001/ISO14001 they have a matrix certification system with the CB, where many of the top-level requirements are covered during the head office audit and those at each site are then smaller and more focussed on local implementation, so it does reduce the audit burden for the sites to some extent.

For the GFSI standards though I doubt there is much to be gained unless you're potentially going to get some sort of bulk discount.

Even within the same CB you'll find auditors often have significant differences in how they interpret the requirements of a standard, so unless you know you're always going to get the same auditor at both facilities I'm not sure there would be any real benefit?

Hello pHruit,

We have only been audited by SAI GLOBAL so far, and might continue with GFSI in the near future. 

Thank you very much for your response. I understand that having the same auditor will be a very important factor. So if we do not have the same auditor at both facilities it really does not matter whether we have the same audit body or not.

Appreciate your comment.