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Field Book · Chapter 6 of 8 · Change the system, not the person

Corrective Action

Training and reminders fade. Put an action against each cause that changes the procedure, the form, the schedule or the check, with an owner and a due day.

By Chris Martin, quality manager. 2 minute read. Free, no signup.

Training and a reminder are the usual reason a response comes back. Put an action against each cause that changes the thing the person works with: the procedure, the form, the schedule or the check, so the gap closes whether or not anyone remembers. Give each action one owner and a due day inside the response period.

Monday, 8:00, the action meeting. The first draft on the whiteboard reads: retrain all assembly operators and send a reminder. It took four minutes to write and it would take one afternoon to complete. It would also change nothing about why the date could not be seen.

Training and reminders fade. A corrective action that depends on someone remembering is the usual reason a response comes back. Change the thing the person works with: the procedure, the form, the schedule or the check, so the gap closes whether or not anyone remembers.

Put an action against each cause

Step 5 gave three causes. Four actions answer them:

  1. Weekly expiry sweep of all 31 stations and the shelf, signed on a sweep log. Owner: stockroom lead. Due: day 7.
  2. Name the stockroom lead as owner of shelf life materials in the receiving procedure. Owner: quality manager. Due: day 7.
  3. Receiving label template gets a required expiry field, and the 43 shelf containers are relabeled. Owner: stockroom lead. Due: day 10.
  4. Receiving procedure revised: shelf life check at receiving, expired material to a red tag shelf. Owner: quality engineer. Due: day 14.

The label gap is closed by the template, which will not print without a date. The missing check is closed by the receiving procedure and by the weekly sweep, which looks at every station and the shelf. The missing owner is closed by naming one. Every cause has an action, and every action answers a cause. An action with no cause behind it is busywork.

Ask the forgetting question

Run each action through one test: if the person forgets, does the gap still close? The label template passes, because the label cannot print without the date. The sweep passes, because it is on a schedule with a log, and a missed sweep leaves a gap in the log that anyone can see. A reminder email fails.

Training can sit under the actions as support. Here the stockroom staff and the assembly leads read the revised procedure and sign that they have. It is not on the list of actions because on its own it would be the second reason a response comes back: it stops at training.

Read more: corrective vs preventive action. In the free audit finding response builder this is the Corrective action section, and it flags training or reminders as the only action.

The mistake to avoid

Choosing the action that is easiest to finish before the response is due. Choose the one that keeps the gap closed, even if it takes longer.

ON THE FLOOR MONDAY
  • Read the actions on your last response.
  • Pair each one with a cause.
  • Replace any that only remind or train.

Open the printable Monday Board

Want every tool on this trail in one purchase? The Audit Response Trail Bundle has all 11.

The plant, the audit, the finding and every number in this book (finding CAR-0417) are a made-up example. The tool sidebars show ShopFloorOps tools, which I make and sell. Every chapter teaches the step itself, so you can use your own forms. New to a term? See the quality glossary.