There are two types of actions in an ISO 9001 Quality Management System: Corrective action and preventive action.  Many people struggle with just what a preventive action looks like and how it differs from a corrective action.  What’s funny about this discussion is how everyone tries to explain the difference as merely an interpretation of the words “occurrence” and “potential”.

For example, the ISO 9000:2005 definition states:

Corrective Action (Clause 3.6.5):
action to eliminate the cause of a detected nonconformity and its recurrence.

Preventive Action (Clause 3.6.4):
action to eliminate the cause of a potential nonconformity and its occurrence.

But does this really clear it up for anyone?

What’s the Difference between Corrective Action and Preventive Action?

Corrective action is performed on detected nonconformities.  In other words, there are real defects that exist right now

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We know that it is important to collect information and feedback from external and internal sources in order to identify problems and non-conformances.  But once you have found a problem, what steps do you take to resolve it?

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Corrective action is the theme for this month.  To start the series, let’s talk about where it all begins – inputs to the corrective action process.

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If your goal is ISO certification, the best method is to create a compliant QMS in stages.

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What if your sales increased from $100,000 to $110,000 per day and your profit increased from $10,000 to $11,000 – did you improve by 10%? The answer might shock you…

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