Irrespective of the industry, every organization has three common goals: manufacturing high-quality products, maintaining a safe work environment, and complying with government regulations. This is where CAPA or Corrective And Preventive Action become essential. This is a systematic approach to fixing anomalies and streamlining the manufacturing process.
The terms are often used together and may sound similar, but they have distinct differences. This article provides insights into corrective vs. preventive action, while defining their purpose and significance so you can improve your action plans.
What is Corrective Action?
Corrective action refers to actions taken to fix an existing problem. It focuses on identifying the problem, applying a solution to fix it, and finding ways to keep it from recurring. The key point to remember here is that corrective actions are always taken after a problem has been reported.
For example, let’s say a worker slipped on the floor that was recently mopped. Corrective action could include giving the individual first aid, using fans to dry the area quickly, and putting up caution signboards to keep similar accidents from recurring.
What is Preventive Action?
Preventive action focuses on anticipating potential problems, analyzing trends, evaluating the chances of the problem occurring, and finding ways to prevent it from happening. If the problem is unavoidable, preventive action looks at ways to reduce its impact. Unlike corrective action, this is a proactive process focused on prevention.
Here’s an example. The floor manager notices a wet floor and though no one has slipped on it yet, caution signs are placed around it.
Corrective vs. Preventive Action
Corrective and preventive actions are both designed to address problems, but in different ways. Some of the key differences between them are:
Focal point
Corrective actions focus on addressing an existing problem while preventive actions focus on anticipated problems that have not yet occurred.
Timing
Corrective action is part of a reactive strategy that addresses issues after they have been reported. On the other hand, preventive action is part of a proactive strategy that evaluates the risk of an incident and designs solutions to prevent it from occurring.
Type of solution
Corrective actions are usually concerned with finding a solution to immediate concerns. The next stage is to design a long-term solution to keep the problem from recurring. Preventive actions focus on long-term solutions.
Complexity
Creating a preventive action plan may be more complex than a corrective action plan. This is because preventive actions may need to address multiple potential hazards while corrective actions typically address one issue at a time.
Why are Both Corrective and Preventive Actions Required?
Considering both corrective and preventive actions focus on problem-solving, it might be tempting to focus only on one type of action. However, they are both equally important. Preventive actions lower the risk of accidents but accidents may still happen. For example, a worker may ignore the caution signboard and slip on a wet floor. Hence, it is important to also have a corrective action strategy in place to deal with these accidents.
Creating a Corrective and Preventive Action Plan
While many businesses have switched from preventive actions to taking a risk-based approach and continuous improvement, preventive action is still required for IATF 16949 and ISO 13485 compliance. Corrective action is a requirement for other regulations such as ISO 27001:2013, ISO 9001:2015, and ISO 14001:2015.
The steps to creating a corrective or preventive action plan are quite similar.
Step 1: Identify and describe potential issues
In the case of preventive action, you must first identify all the potential issues that may arise in a given situation.
In the case of corrective action, the problem has already been reported. You will now need to assess the issue to see whether it is a real problem or not. In most cases, real issues can be identified by comparing the situation to the expected outcome. This means that you must be able to define the expected outcome. For example, the parts produced should be 1” shorter.
Step 2: Evaluate the risk of each issue arising/ recurring
Not all problems can be prevented from occurring or recurring. Since resources are typically limited, they must be used in the most effective way. Hence, identify the scope of the issue and how it will impact your system. This will help prioritize issues and ensure that you focus on tackling the most important problems.
Step 3: Contain the problem
This step is required only for corrective action plans. This involves implementing a quick solution that addresses the existing issue as a temporary, interim measure.
Step 4: Identify the root cause of the problem
Both corrective and preventive actions focus on addressing the root cause of the problem. Identifying this can be tricky. The two most common strategies used to identify the root cause of an issue are the 5 Whys and the Fishbone Diagram.
The 5 Whys
The 5 Whys is a method where you ask ‘Why’ five times to get to the root cause of a problem.
For example, let’s say a machine has a high defect rate:
- Why is the machine producing defective pieces – because a part is worn out.
- Why is the part worn out – because it hasn’t been replaced.
- Why hasn’t it been replaced – because the machine hasn’t been serviced.
- Why hasn’t the machine been serviced- because the last scheduled maintenance check was missed.
- Why was the last maintenance schedule missed – because the maintenance contract has not been renewed.
Hence, the root problem is the maintenance contract. Fixing this can ensure a long-term solution and keep the issue from recurring.
Fishbone Diagram
This is a graphic tool that illustrates the cause-and-effect relationship behind a problem. The problem statement is the spine of this diagram. Each variable (employee, machine, part availability, etc.) associated with this problem becomes a line moving away from this spine.
Next, each possible reason is written along the relevant ‘spine’s bone’. Thus, this diagram becomes a guide to identify the possible reasons that may trigger the issue and identify the root cause.
Step 5: Create a solution to address the root cause
Both preventive and corrective actions focus on taking action to address the root cause of the problem. This must include the steps to be taken, the associated schedule, cost, and a plan to assess the solution’s effectiveness.
Step 6: Implement the solution
This step is not only about putting your plan into action but also evaluating its effectiveness and making it a standardized practice across the organization.
Digitizing Your Corrective and Preventive Action Plans
Digital visual management tools like fabriq can play an important role in creating and implementing corrective and preventive action plans.
To begin with, these tools ensure that decision-makers have access to real-time data. This may be gathered from IoT devices or through tickets raised by machine operators and other employees. Tickets that cannot be solved at a lower management level can easily be escalated to higher management tiers without any loss of information.
Further, it facilitates root cause analysis with customizable graphic tools such as the 5 Whys and the Fishbone or Ishikawa diagram. Once a solution is found, fabriq makes it easy for decision makers to pass instructions to different teams and maintain up-to-date SOPs to keep the problem from recurring.
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