Preventive Action - Mislabeling of Cargo Shipment

[Marla Diaz]

Only last month, a corrective action was implemented regarding a case of mislabeling of cargo shipment. The problem recurred even before the audit team could check the effectiveness of the C/A. The person who installed the label admitted that he did not checked if he labeled the correct cargo. This was after all the C/As were implemented even before the occurence last month..i think that was the 2nd incident already.

My question is,
1. Can you apply a preventive action or issue instead a continual
improvement/opportunity for improvement CAR to a recurring
problem?

2. If in case this mislabeling problem has not occurred for at least a
year, then occurs again, would a P/A be applicable or is it still a C/A?

Thanks,
Marla

[gpainter]

Originally Posted by Marla Diaz

Only last month, a corrective action was implemented regarding a case of mislabeling of cargo shipment. The problem recurred even before the audit team could check the effectiveness of the C/A. The person who installed the label admitted that he did not checked if he labeled the correct cargo. This was after all the C/As were implemented even before the occurence last month..i think that was the 2nd incident already.

My question is,
1. Can you apply a preventive action or issue instead a continual
improvement/opportunity for improvement CAR to a recurring
problem?

2. If in case this mislabeling problem has not occurred for at least a
year, then occurs again, would a P/A be applicable or is it still a C/A?

Thanks,
Marla

#1 is still a CA, one method for CI is CA.
#2 would still be a CA and the past CAR not effective. I guess you could get by with a PA depending on how long you keep your records, but that would be dishonest!!

[Kevin Mader]

Hello Marla,

The first thing to come to mind when reading your post is whether or not the true root cause has been diagnosed. If the problem is recurring, have you addressed the true root cause?

Ultimately, some level of mislabeling will occur in a stable, predictable process. Are the numbers of mislabeled shipments indicative of a common cause or a special cause? Using cause-and-effect anaylsis, can you trace back to a true root cause, determine the frequency of the failuremode to detect if it is in fact, a special cause? This might help with the determination if CA is the right CI tool to apply.

I would agree with gpainter, you don't have anything to gain by bending definitions. Lock into what your organization defines CA and PA as, and consistently apply them.

Regards,

Kevin

[M Greenaway]

Just to ditto what Kevin said.

It was interestingly discussed some time ago the proposition that corrective action may not necessarily be to prevent problems occurring ever again, but rather to bring the instances back to an acceptable level.

One incident of mis-labelling in a year sounds pretty good to me (asuming that you ship substantially more than one item a year !).

If I were you I would set an 'acceptable quality level' for mis-labelling, lets say for arguments sake 0.1% of items shipped. Then monitor your shipping process for incidents of this type of error, and only take corrective action if the process performance exceeds this 0.1%.

[Greg B]

I agree with you guys. It is not always possible to obtain 100% control of NCs. It is exactly the same in safety using the heirarchy of controls:
Elimination - Can I eliminate the threat?
Substitution - Can I substitute something else?
Engineering - Can I engineer the problem out?
Administration - Will more training, Instructions etc eliminate it?
PPE - Do we continue with the process but wear PPE?

The above shows the different steps you would take with a safety issue in trying to eliminate it.

Greg B

[rak]

Marla,
As we see in our organization, if an incident has already happened and some actions are being taken to address the issue, then it is Corrective action. However action taken before the incident happens, is considered as Preventive action. In short - Prevent occurence is Preventive action; Prevent reccurence is Corrective action.

Regards,
Rakesh