Benchmarking - Timely Closure of Corrective Actions

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mlthompson

I am trying to get a good benchmark from other companies on how long it takes you to fully close a corrective action with effective actions. I am looking at two specific area: Customer rejections and system nonconformances from internal/external audits.

Please comment on your customer's/registrar's expectations and then on your ability to meet those expectations.

Thanks in advance.
 
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Reg Morrison

I will respectfully submit that timely corrective action closure is not benchmarkable, simply because different issues will demand different lengths of time to be resolved.

Many organizations artificially set 30-day, 45-day, 60-day goals, but, in my view, that is a mistake. Some issues need urgent actions, others can take longer...

In my experience, the best approach is to assess the risks of the nonconforming situation, set a timeframe for resolution and keep you accountable to that date.
 
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mlthompson

Your approach to determining before hand how long it should take is a great suggestion. I will add that to our procedure where we can. But how do you handle customer driven expectations.

I have one customer who requires 8Ds to be closed in 15 days, most others are 30 days. One customer doesn't allow for extensions. Most allow one request for extension. But as you said, everything is different. For most solid process focused CA's, 30 days is not enough.

For external audit nonconformances, the IATF rules require 60 days for full closure. TS standards requires "undue delay".

Two things I am trying to do is: 1) determine how other companies are doing at meeting their customer/registrar timing expectations, and 2) I am trying to establish some quality metrics on timeliness in order to drive "rapid improvement", and not take excessive time to achieve our quality objectives.
 
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PaulJSmith

Had this discussion this morning with a new engineer here. You could complete and close out the paperwork today if that's the goal. Did it resolve the issue? Not sure you can know that immediately, so why hurry to close it before you're finished.

If your focus is on the timeliness of closure, then you'll very likely be seeing down the road a Non-Con for inadequate Corrective Action resolutions.
 
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