The ISO9001:2000 quality standard is undergoing revision at this time, and it looks like the new version will be called ISO9001:2008. And, no surprise, it’s expected in late 2008.
The ISO9001:2008 standard is expected to contain no significant changes from the 2001 standard. Instead, it will merely attempt to clarify some areas of the 2001 standard that some thought were ambiguous.
One aspect of ISO9001:2000 that many people consider ambiguous, and many (like myself) consider to be unrealistic, is that of “preventive actions”.
I’ve heard it described that preventive actions are the proactive cousin to corrective actions, and I kinda like that description. Preventive actions are, of course, actions taken to prevent something bad from happening. And corrective actions are actions taken to correct something bad that has already happened. Any good corrective action, of course, will also contain a preventive action to make sure that whatever bad thing that happened does not happen again.
But what about the preventive action standing on its own? In about 14 years of quality system management experience, I have not once seen anyone make a formal preventive action request. Oh, sure, we have a procedure for that, and a form too. Well, actually its the same form as used for Corrective Action Requests, just with a checkbox used to distinguish Preventive from Corrective actions. But the form and the procedure are there, right? So how come no one ever writes these up?
I’m guessing that preventive action requests are done more frequently in large companies that have dedicated quality people searching for things to do. Quality people in small, entreprenurial companies probably wear several hats, and are usually way too busy operating the company to create more work for themselves by writing up and dealing with “preventive actions”. Just fix the damn problem, don’t talk about it!
It just dawned on me that female quality management professionals probably write up far more preventive action requests (and corrective actions) than do their male counterparts. Guys, after all, just want to fix problems NOW! Our testosterone-challenged colleagues, though, often are more interested in TALKING about problems than in actually resolving them.
Hmmmm….this could be a whole new slant on quality system management. How do men handle quality issues versus women?
Hello, I have noticed that you have not mentioned anything about a gap analysis. I was wondering what your thoughts on GA s are why you have chosen not to include it in your package. How do others feel about this?
I know what you mean about ambiguity. I have just finished a certification audit and there seems to be a difference in what the standard requires and what the auditor expects to see.
Preventive actions are actions taken based on ” potential problems ‘, such as FMEA. I often confused as well on corrective actions where we taken after a defect is found.
For example, part A has a defect, and corrective actions are taken.
Part B has the potential of this defect occurrence, Preventive Actions are taken.
So for Part A, what ever actions we are going to take, are deemed as
CORRECTIVE ACTIONS.
This is the what my understanding is, how about your comments ?
Preventive action requests are very rare indeed.
Suggestions to improve processess are potential sources of these requests. Often, the requestor detects potential risks/problems hence the suggestion.
We view PARs as opportunities for improvement as well as for preventing mistakes. For instance, as we added new staff to a department, we discovered a lot of important information had become intuitive to the longer-term staff and, as such, wasn’t recorded anywhere. A PAR (preventing errors) was written: to formalize and record the experiential knowledge and, as a result training was done to bring all staff to the same level of understanding of the products. Another instance was to involve all employees (we’re a small company) into the customer service/satisfaction objective; we solicited input on how we could better relate to customer expectations. That discussion resulted in multiple ideas for improvement, i.e., PARs for more focused customer satisfaction.
I work in a very large company and we have a guy pushing that all depts fill out PARs. He is not liked much.