SC QUALITY GUILDCorrective and preventive action
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Describe, contain, find the cause, act, check where else it could happen, and verify it worked, with a running check on which stages are complete.
ON THE EXAM · CSSYB IV.C, IV.D · FREE · NOTHING YOU TYPE LEAVES YOUR BROWSER
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Correction, corrective action, preventive action
Three terms that are easy to blur:
- Correction deals with the nonconformity itself: sort the stock, rework the parts. Containment belongs here. It protects the customer and does nothing about the cause.
- Corrective action removes the cause of a nonconformity that has happened, so it does not happen again.
- Preventive action removes the cause of a potential nonconformity before it happens. In practice the most useful preventive question comes straight out of a corrective action: where else could this same cause be at work?
Two causes, not one
Every defect that reaches a customer has two causes: why it was made, and why it was not caught. Fix only the first and the detection gap is still there for the next problem. The form asks for both, and the status check flags corrective actions that address only one.
Training is rarely the answer
Retraining and reminders are the most common corrective actions and among the weakest, because they depend on people remembering under pressure. If every action on the form is training, the tool says so. Look for an action that changes the process, the tooling or the check so the error cannot happen or cannot escape.
Effectiveness is not completion
An action can be finished on time and change nothing. Effectiveness is checked against the original problem, after enough time or volume that a recurrence would have shown up. Write the criteria before the actions are taken, so the result cannot be talked into a pass afterwards. The form will not count a CAPA as effective without a result and a date, and flags one closed before its effectiveness check.
CAPA form or 8D report?
This form follows the corrective action process in general terms. Many customers, especially in automotive and supplier quality, ask for the same work in the eight-discipline format, with a named team, containment verification, an escape point and recognition. For that, use the 8D report.
On the Yellow Belt exam
Corrective action (IV.C) and preventive action (IV.D) are separate topics in the 2022 CSSYB Body of Knowledge. Expect to be asked to tell the two apart, and to distinguish them from correction or containment.