A third-party audit is performed by an audit organization independent of the customer-supplier relationship and is free of any conflict of interest. Independence of the audit organization is a key component of a third-party audit.
A third-party audit occurs when a company has decided that they want to create a quality management system (QMS) that conforms to a standard set of requirements, such as
ISO 9001, and hire an independent company to perform an audit to verify that the company has succeeded in this endeavor. These independent companies are called
certification bodies or
registrars, and they are in the business of conducting audits to compare and verify that the QMS meets all the requirements of the chosen standard, and continues to meet the requirements on an ongoing basis. They then provide certification to companies that they approve. This can be used to give customers of the certified company confidence that the QMS meets the requirements of the chosen standard.
