Importance of Documenting NCP's and CA/PA's

[Christine1105]

[FONT=&quot]Hi Everyone,[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]
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[FONT=&quot]Our company just received ISO 9001:2008 certification (2 months ago). We started this journey 18 months ago and with no quality background or experience I volunteered for the Management Rep. position. I know what you?re thinking (silly girl). There have been some challenges but it has been a great experience. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Now the fun begins. I am determined to make our QMS more about a system that works for us and is beneficial to our company than crossing T?s and dotting i?s for an auditor (which unfortunately has been the focus).[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]I have noticed a weak area in documenting our NCP?s and CAPA?s. We have a database that captures all the required information (if it?s manually entered). We are a small manufacturing company with 120 employees but with 10 departments. Each department handles their own NCP?s and are responsible for entering the information in the system if they feel it?s merited (this is how the owner wanted it). Not every non-conformance is entered, only those situations ?out of the norm? ? I?m guessing even those are not being documented.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]We have decided to focus on scrap. I have a scrap report that is updated and distributed monthly. As I said, we are a small company and situations are dealt with promptly but are rarely documented in our NCP database. (i.e. 1 department has reported $40,000 in scrap over a 12 month period but no documentation has been entered in our NCP database). [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Of course there are employees that have said ?We?re going to waste so much time entering information? and yes there have been times that the owner has agreed with them. How can I convey the importance and usefulness of having this information documented when the owner says, ?We dealt with the situation already so why do we need to document it??[/FONT]

 

[qpled]

Hi Christine - You could try linking the CA part of your CAPA to the NCP reports to show how CA's might/can decrease the scrap costs, as an example. Or have you already tried this route?

 

[Reg Morrison]

How can I convey the importance and usefulness of having this information documented when the owner says, ?We dealt with the situation already so why do we need to document it??[/FONT]

One of the traits for successful organizations (and people) is their ability to learn from the mistakes and avoid repeating it. Efficacious Corrective Action is nothing more than learning from mistakes to prevent them from happening again.

Can you really trust the $40k scrap costs? Could it be that they were much higher. If they don't have the discipline to capture some of the nonconforming product, could it be that they are not capturing all the costs either? Would the owner have a different attitude if the scrap costs were $100k?

Good luck.

 

[Golfman25]

Your owner is right. 80% of the issues are the Nike phrase "just do it." It takes longer to document the fix than to implement the fix. Keep the documentation to a minimum and at all costs avoid double documentation.

We put a dollar threshold. Where the fix is going to be greater than a certain amount, then we want to document it. Less than that amount -- "get er done."

 

[PaulJSmith]

The "Nike" approach can work ... to some extent. What you fail to capture with that method, though, are all of the little things that nibble away at your time and efficiency. The things you thought were insignificant at the time could add up to be a major driver in the total scheme. Yeah, it may take 30 minutes to correct one big mistake, but when you add up the time and expenses of all the little things, they frequently overshadow that one big thing. You cannot know this until you've documented them and analyzed the data. This is probably what's happening with Christine's scrap issue. They may be missing a wealth of information, and not seeing the forest for the trees.

 

[John Broomfield]

[FONT=&quot]Hi Everyone,[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]
[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Our company just received ISO 9001:2008 certification (2 months ago). We started this journey 18 months ago and with no quality background or experience I volunteered for the Management Rep. position. I know what you?re thinking (silly girl). There have been some challenges but it has been a great experience. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Now the fun begins. I am determined to make our QMS more about a system that works for us and is beneficial to our company than crossing T?s and dotting i?s for an auditor (which unfortunately has been the focus).[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]I have noticed a weak area in documenting our NCP?s and CAPA?s. We have a database that captures all the required information (if it?s manually entered). We are a small manufacturing company with 120 employees but with 10 departments. Each department handles their own NCP?s and are responsible for entering the information in the system if they feel it?s merited (this is how the owner wanted it). Not every non-conformance is entered, only those situations ?out of the norm? ? I?m guessing even those are not being documented.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]We have decided to focus on scrap. I have a scrap report that is updated and distributed monthly. As I said, we are a small company and situations are dealt with promptly but are rarely documented in our NCP database. (i.e. 1 department has reported $40,000 in scrap over a 12 month period but no documentation has been entered in our NCP database). [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Of course there are employees that have said ?We?re going to waste so much time entering information? and yes there have been times that the owner has agreed with them. How can I convey the importance and usefulness of having this information documented when the owner says, ?We dealt with the situation already so why do we need to document it??[/FONT]

Christine,

NCP = nonconforming product?

If NCP includes nonconforming process then no need for the person monitoring to record this or the action taken to correct it.

System and process nonconformities are usefully recorded if investing in removal of root causes.

As to PACA (preventive action should happen before corrective action) then record the root causes and action taken to remove root causes before or after the nonconformities occur.

Then you'll be able to monitor the effectiveness of the PACA processes and your organization will reduce its costs of nonconformity (way beyond scrap, BTW) by investing in PA or preventive action.

Generally though, just invest in prevention; it's the right thing to do.

John

 

[pldey42]

I think that the answer to a question sometimes lies in the answer to another question.

First, ISO 9001 doesn't require NCP reporting as such. It requires a documented procedure for identifying and controlling nonconforming product.

So if the department that reported $40,000 in scrap is identifying and controlling it, what's the value - to the department, and/or to the business - of documenting it in the NCP database?

(If the database is there merely to satisfy auditors by documenting what's being reported anyhow, it has no value and will encounter resistance, rightly so.)

Pat

 

[PaulJSmith]

There are a great many things that most companies do that are not "required" by ISO 9001, Pat. That doesn't make them of no value to those companies (see clause 4.2.1.d). If they have a procedure that defines it as such, then they should either be doing it, or change the procedure to exclude it. It was originally implemented for a reason, I'm guessing. Is that reason no longer valid?

 

[JaneB]

If the owner doesn't see any point, you'll be pushing the proverbial uphill.
I'd look for some figures that could demonstrate it is valuable - perhaps even try a pilot project for say 6 months and see if it backs up the idea that there is no point?
Because if the owner continues to see it as pointless, it won't happen, I'm afraid.

 

[pldey42]

There are a great many things that most companies do that are not "required" by ISO 9001, Pat.

I'm well aware of that. I'm also aware that companies do things they think the standard requires when in fact it doesn't, but they think they'll make the auditor happy.

That doesn't make them of no value to those companies (see clause 4.2.1.d). If they have a procedure that defines it as such, then they should either be doing it, or change the procedure to exclude it. It was originally implemented for a reason, I'm guessing. Is that reason no longer valid?

Well indeed. The point of my post was to ask the original poster what was the value of the NCP database - the reason for its implementation. Sometimes people don't do such data entry because they see no value in it - simply making them do it, without explaining why, isn't an answer. Hence my question.

Which I think is especially relevant because scrap in one department is being reported as costing $40,000: some reporting is being done, so what value does the database add? Or is it, perhaps, cumbersome to use - I can imagine that a one page report on a manager's desk saying "We blew forty grand" in red letters might be more likely to get attention than a single line item in a fat report that nobody reads because it's too fat. (I saw such a report once. It covered everything that the quality department thought it knew, database dumps, SQL queries, the lot. It was an inch and a half thick and pinned to the wall where the management review was due to take place. Nobody read it. The senior manager opened the management review and said, "So tell me what I need to know." Making people contribute to reports that don't get management action is counterproductive in my experience. Better to teach quality how to gather useful data and present it in a useful fashion.)

Without knowing what's actually happening, I do not see how guidance can be given by anyone, except in the terms that JaneB used which is along the lines I too am suggesting.

Pat