If Corrective and Preventive Action were truly Effective

jack770214

Involved In Discussions
If corrective and preventive action were truly effective. How could there ever be more than one finding for any clause after the first initial internal or external audit?

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Bev D

Heretical Statistician
Leader
Super Moderator
Interesting question.

First preventive action is not all that common (too many people adhere to old saying “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” or they have so many actual problems that preventing new ones is not possible with existing resources)

Even when the actual causal mechanism is discovered and corrective action is taken to prevent it’s recurrence (read that statement carefully; the word preventive is used in a different context than taking simple preventive action), other causes can surface later to create the same non-conformance. We typically take corrective action against the cause not the Problem (the effect) in general. (See preventive action statement above)
Also since many non-conformances that we discuss in the context of ISO standards are people behavior system related, other people can take the same action or similar actions to create the same effect.

Discipline to a single way of doing things is anathema to many people...
 

John Predmore

Trusted Information Resource
If corrective and preventive action were truly effective. How could there ever be more than one finding for any clause after the first initial internal or external audit?

Many correction/prevention programs will stop after closing one hole in the Swiss Cheese Model for accident causation. The 8D team is celebrated and everyone moves on to the next assignment. But there may be multiple fault tree sequences by which a particular failure can occur.

(Refer to the Swiss_cheese_model in Wikipedia.)

Everything changes with time. Change is constant. Circumstances change and causal sequences which never happened before suddenly can occur. Which is a polite way of saying we can never make the process completely fool-proof because they keep making better fools. ;)
 

Bev D

Heretical Statistician
Leader
Super Moderator
Love the swiss cheese model! it has been so helpful to getting my organization understand people processes.

I strongly recommend that everyone familiarize themselves with this framework. (it also aligns well with the Apollo method and the Tap Root(TM) methods. But is so much easier to explain quickly and effectively) It helps makes 5-Why actually effective.

...although I don't think they make better fools. people are just infinitely creative in their need to circumvent process...
 
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