Gap Analysis Audits: A very useful audit prior to the implementation of any Management System as it provides an organisation with a clear indication of the current situation of each area versus what will be required to achieve a certified system.

Pre Certification Audits: This type of audit is conducted just prior to certification or customer audit and is designed to reflect the potential findings of a certification body or customer before the actual audit occurs.

Systems Audits: The most basic and common type of audit, a Systems audit is simple mechanism of ensuring the organisation meets the requirements of a Certified Standard (ISO etc) and the organisations own procedures.

Process Audits: This audit is used to determine how effectively the process is functioning by specifically focusing on the elements of the system that have a direct impact on the products or services. It provides an analysis of how well the organisations staff, equipment and departments understand and follow what is required of them.

Run @ Rate Audits: This is a very effective audit in ensuring product conformance and commonly used in the Automotive industry, the audit is based on following a batch(s) through the entire process and auditing the product and the process at each step to ensure compliance.

Supplier Audits: The audit itself can be Systems, Process or Run @ Rate based or a combination depending on the organisations requirements. This type of audit is very important in the development of the organisations suppliers and provides several benefits:

1. It ensures suppliers are meeting agreed specifications on the products or services supplied to the organisation.
2. It demonstrates the importance that the organisation places on the suppliers products or services.
3. Within certain industries it is now a requirement that suppliers are audited on a regular basis.

Legislative Compliance Audits: This type of audit is designed to ensure the organisations adherence to legislation in a particular area and can often be quite technical. Most commonly it is used as when auditing particular elements of such standards as ISO:14000 and OHSAS:18000 and when dealing with waste licences and IPPC licences.