Corrective Actions Awareness Enhancement

[Sardokar]

Hello

I was wondering to what extent and how do you people suggest to "advertise" (increase staff awareness ) the corrective actions taken in the organisation?


Basically the way we perform corrective actions is that when theres a problem the quality team requests from directly involved people to meet, wie perform brain storming, root cause analysis and we agree on corrective actions to be taken

1) Should the corrective actions be signed by only the people who have been directly affected by the problem or all the persons in a similar job position that MAY some day be exposed to that kind of problem ?

example :

let us say that we experienced a problem due to a communication issue between sales and presales in Country "X"

and we solved it by creating a procedure that formally clarifies the responsibilities and authorities of the sales/presales when dealing with such a case .

So basically i make that corrective action get signed by the Sales Manager/Presales Manager of country X ... but shouldnt I also get it signed by the Sales/Presales of Countries "Y" and "Z" ?


2) How do you people enhance awareness on the corrective actions in your organisation ?

do you distribute hard copies of the signed corrective actions to all involved people ? I find it not a very good way because papers tend to be lost/ignored after a while ...

any suggestions ?


3 ) Do you think it would be a good idea to advertise to the staff the evolution of our corrective actions ? (increase/decrease according to type and severity of corrective action ) or should we only keep this kind of data analysis for Management review ?


Thanks for the help and inputs .

 

[qusys]

For question 1): this is up to your organization according to your mandatory corrective action procedure as well as preventive action one.
As you know there are lots of different thought schools for preventive action in this case. In my opinion, the verification of effectiveness of corrective action activity is key for the organization and shall be a patrimony of each process owner

For question 2): Organization that I saw use ad hoc database for corrective and preventive action to have an historical memory. Database is ok because you cab generate statistics and so on.
Besides, it can be considered as a repository of so called "lesson learnt". Sharing of the most important lesson learnt could be done on quarterly base also to celebrate teams that fixed corrective action ( it is what 8D says)

For question 3): I agree with the first item you say, it is important that staff has the pulse of the situation, especially if there are issue for product return form customer. However take into account that mgmt review forecasts the revision of the status of the corrective and preventive actions

hope this helps

 

[CGarveyX]

My experience is with a single location, so not quite the scope of a company with locations in multiple countries, however, I believe a lot of ideas can still apply.

1.) Personally, I like to keep signing of corrective actions (CA) to as few people as possible. Probably a lot easier for me than it may be with your situation. But if there is one person that is in charge of the sales and pre-sales processes regardless of the country, that is who I would have sign the CAs.

2.) Like qusys mentioned, we use a database to store all corrective actions that can be searched by who was involved, the process affected, etc. If there is some form of communication between the different countries (like a newsletter or video conferences) I think that would be a good way to communicate CAs between different groups. Our system also allows emailing a link to the CA so anyone we feel needs to be informed can review the CA.

We always review them at management review and then in departmental meetings for the affected departments. If the corrective action is important enough, it would likely involve changes to procedures or work instructions, which would probably require training. This would effectively communicate the CA assuming the reason for the changes is discussed in the training.

3.) I think CA statistics (and many management related metrics) can get to be a little overkill for everyone. Posting the stats for the sake of posting the stats won’t accomplish much (in my opinion). I think rather than raw numbers, posting a blurb almost like a case study breaking down the problem that was found, how it was investigated and how it was fixed might engage people a little more. If you are really lucky, it might promote more feedback and present more opportunities for improvement.

Hope this makes sense!

 

[Elynn]

1) Should the corrective actions be signed by only the people who have been directly affected by the problem or all the persons in a similar job position that MAY some day be exposed to that kind of problem ?

2) How do you people enhance awareness on the corrective actions in your organisation ?

do you distribute hard copies of the signed corrective actions to all involved people ? I find it not a very good way because papers tend to be lost/ignored after a while ...

any suggestions ?


3 ) Do you think it would be a good idea to advertise to the staff the evolution of our corrective actions ? (increase/decrease according to type and severity of corrective action ) or should we only keep this kind of data analysis for Management review ?

It is important to remember that "communication" is a key contributor to success of any QMS. My take for the 3 questions are:

1. On the form, only the 'lead' of the affected divisions should sign off or he/she who is/are accountable for the effectiveness of the CA.

2. The respective 'lead' should ensure the CA are communicated downstream and highlighted to their superiors as well. Depending on the CA, be it change in processes or an action to eliminate a NC, QA manager should follow up on effectiveness of the CA. This effectiveness is measured / revisited in 2-3 mths (depending on the case). If no recurrance, or showed to be effective, the NC can be considered closed. Have a Preventive plan if need to.

3. There should be a process to 'communicate' a NC which requires a CA to the floor. Of cos, MR should report the CA and it's effectiveness too.