Corrective vs. Preventive Systems and Procedures - Separate Procedures?

[Marc]

How is YOUR company set up??? This is from the ListServe.

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From: Nancy Jennejohn
Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2001 22:55:13 -0500
Subject: Re: Elem 14 related to employee suggestions /../Scalies/Bauer

From: "Russell Bauer"

Charley wrote:
> I had a registrar's auditor tell me that since the new standard requires
> procedures for CA and also PA, he expects to see 2 separate procedures.

I guess we are the strange ones, but I prefer 2 different procedures. This helps everyone keep the two processes separate. I have been trying for a long time to emphasize the practice of preventive action that is outside and not related to corrective action. it is a true art I believe, and preventive action must remain a procedure all it's own. Just my opinion...but strengthened with every external audit we have.

R. Bauer

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From: Nancy Jennejohn
Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2001 22:59:17 -0500
Subject: Re: Elem 14 related to employee suggestions /../Scalies/Holtz

From: "John Holtz"

Charley Scalies wrote:

> I had a registrar's auditor tell me that since the new standard requires
> procedures for CA and also PA, he expects to see 2 separate procedures. I
> have a high regard for this guy - he usually has his head screwed on
> straight - so I figure he must have been off his feed that day.
> Has anyone else gotten the same silly "advice"?
>

Two procedures...one procedure...I can't imagine that being the issue with an auditor...but...if as an auditor I did not see a procedural differentiation between corrective and preventive action, I'd ask for the organization's understanding of the two concepts and follow the links or lack thereof to a process. The differences are subtle. 9000:2000 differentiates them by "prevent occurrence" (PA) and "prevent reoccurrence" (CA), but goes no further.. 9004:2000 implies that PA is data driven for potential events while CA is driven by root-cause of actual events. Hmmmm. Actually, 9001:2000 may give us the most information: from 8.5.2 "...take action to eliminate the cause of nonconformity"; From 8.5.3, "...determine action to eliminate the cause of potential nonconformity." Here's the tree-falling-in-the-woods conundrum as it relates to CA/PA: If in your corrective action you do what is necessary to assure that nonconformance will not happen again, is that a preventive measure or a corrective measure? According to what I've heard in 9001:2000 interpretation, that is CA, even though it "sounds an awful lot like" PA.

Sooo...IF that is CA, then what, pray tell, is PA? Although I fully endorse the data analysis interpretation of PA (for acting on trends before the trending actually leads to nonconformity), I go back to the concepts of mistake-proofing and FMEA at the design stage for clarification: if you design in the measures that eliminate the potential for nonconformity in the first place - and that is NOT easy to DO -- are you not practicing PA? To me, that's clear in theory and difficult-but-not-impossible in practice. My acid test is whether I can apply it to both a manufacturing and a non-manufacturing setting, and I can.

Back to wearing the auditor's hat, I'd allow some slack in interpretation, at least until there's a larger body of experience in interpreting 9000:2000. I'm known as being a "tough" auditor but also fair, and I see the value in differentiating the two processes in the manner stated above. I have also seen a lot of blank faces among my fellow quality professionals when I "talk like this," and so I'm using you all as guinea pigs in a way.

Have I added anything positive to the discussion of CA/PA or do you view this as further muddying of the already-silt-laden waters?

Cheers...and have a great day!
John Holtz

[Marc]

Also see Topic: Preventive Action Items and Topic: Preventive Action Examples

The 'biggie' is Topic: Corrective & Preventive Action Systems

Edited 27 October 2001

I can't re-lookup and change every old link to posts in the old forums. Most of them *should* still be there. If you want to find the post in the New forums, if the link to the thread in the old forums works (most of them should...), look at the thread (topic) title and what forum it is in. Then back here in the New forums - go to that forum and look for the thread topic title - OR - do a Search for the key words from Title (Note - you can search entire threads or just the 'subject' or 'title' - if you look in the Forums search page you'll see the options.

Call me lazy...

If you want to find the post in the New forums, if the link to the thread in the old forums works (most of them should...), look at the thread (topic) title and what forum it is in. Then back here in the New forums - go to that forum and look for the thread topic title - OR - do a Search for the key words from Title (Note - you can search entire threads or just the 'subject' or 'title' - if you look in the Forums search page you'll see the options).

[Marc]

I agree with Charlie...

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From: Nancy Jennejohn
Date: Tue, 24 Jul 2001 15:03:31 -0500
Subject: Re: Elem 14 related to employee suggestions /../Scalies/Holtz/Scalies

From: "Charley Scalies"

John Holtz wrote:
> Not silly advice, Charley, and this is a subject that will come up over and
> over again. (Are you just feeding the grist?) A FMEA is preventive and not
> corrective, as are mistake-proofing and poke-a-yoke. A mended or reworked
> part is corrective and not preventive. Data analysis before, during, and
> after the fact can be corrective (run charts) or preventive (process
> capability, trending, customer sat) depending on the nature of the data. I
> find that they plot out very nicely in a flowchart: corrective actions
> definitely have an arm that maps into a preventive cycle but the reverse is
> not true (I might be able to get my hands on that flowchart...gotta check).
>
> Whadayathink?

I classified this auditor's advice as "silly" because he was stressing form over substance. It's the kind of advice that makes "newbies" think ISO is about documentation when it isn't. But if you want to have separate procedures, I have no problem with it. It's (always) your call.

Since you asked what I think, here goes; First, I couldn't care less about the difference between corrective and preventive action just as I don't really care whether a problem discovered during an internal audit is called an observation or a nonconformance (requiring CA).

In the first place I don't like things with initials because everything with initials fails. Why? Glad you asked. Because things with initials become buzzwords and buzzwords always get trivialized. Just as ISO has.

A problem is a problem and it needs to be addressed based on its merits. If I see an angry dog heading my way, I don't need to be bit in the nether regions to realize I have a problem. I take the same action. A. I get the heck out of there. B. I don't go that way again. As for me, once I document a problem, I tend to be like that dog. I don't let go until I decide to let go.

Secondly, I believe we would be better off looking at the Quality Continuum (my term) as a single continuous process. It starts with controlling nonconforming product (keep bad stuff from getting out the door) moves to corrective action (find the causes of serious problems and make them go away), then preventive action (look for trouble before it starts and keep it from happening) and ends with continual improvement (when you have system that works, make it better.) Management needs to understand that they shouldn't stop at preventive action. Somebody will be making a better mousetrap and it might as well be them.

Who cares how you control a process as long as it works? Procedures, documents, flow charts, training, bosses with bullhorns and big whips (boy am I in trouble with the TQM'ers now) and on and on.

As for FMEA's, they do not define the preventive action process, though no doubt they could be used there I suppose. I don't really know how the QS9000 people use them but in my old military program days - yes FMEA's are that old - they were used during the design phase not during production.

Look, one of the major purposes of measurable objectives, especially process and product objectives, is as gauges of system performance. Not only can they tell you that you crossed the line (a nonconformance) but are early warning indicators that, if you don't make a course correction, you will be crossing the line soon. Either way, the actions I take to discern the cause and to eliminate it's recurrence are not at all affected by whether or not its an NC/CA or a PA.

(Looks like the one I really wound up was moi.)

Charley Scalies

PA is a very important part of Continual Improvement. I can say it is the essense of CI. There is no requirement in 9K2K to have a documented procedure on how to do with CI. But it may be curious to develop CI procedure with PA as a main part of it.

Don't delude yourself. Auditors like all documents, that you show them. It is another question - what do they do with only 6 mandatory procedures and 4 pages' Quality Manual?

[Dawn]

Preventive action is new to ISO 2001 but it is not new to QS9000. I created 2 separate procedures mainly because the preventive would not get much attention and would get buried in the corrective action procedure. It is an on-going effort to allot time for prevention when everyone has a busy day to day schedule. Look in the forum under QS corrective and preventive action and you will find alot of help there.

[Dawn]

Preventive action is new to ISO 2001 but not QS 9000. Look through the forum and you will find lots of help. I wrote 2 separate procedures because there isn't a whole lot of time left over in the day for preventive actions and if they were in the same procedure, the preventive would get buried and forgotten.

[E Wall]

In our system we have 1 procedure that deals with both CA and PA each under a separate section heading.

Auditor likes it.