Correction/ Remedial Action, Corrective Action and Preventive Action

ISO 9001:2008 standard requires an organization to establish a procedure for implementation of Corrective Action and Preventive Action.

Whenever a problem is encountered it is addressed in three phases:

Correction (Remedial Action)

Corrective Action

Preventive Action

The above phases are defined as:

Correction (Remedial Action): Remedial action is action proposed or taken to remove nonconformity. Or in simple words, ‘action taken to rectify a problem’.

ISO 9000:2005 Defines Correction, 'action to eliminate a detected non conformity.'

Corrective Action: Corrective action is action planned or taken to stop something from recurring. It could be a one-off event (special cause variation), a recurring event or an inherent condition (common cause variation). Corrective action can, therefore, be considered to be an instrument of both process control and process improvement.

Corrective action forms part of every process rather than being a separate process.

Traceability is required in order to find the root cause of a problem and take corrective action to prevent its recurrence.

ISO 9000:2005 Defines Corrective action, 'action to eliminate the cause of a detected nonconformity or other undesirable situation.'

Preventive action is action proposed or taken to stop something from occurring. When actual problems do not exist but there is a possibility of failure, however unlikely, the action of preventing the occurrence of this failure (or any problem for that matter) is a preventive action.

Preventive action though being a standalone process (may include tools such as process mapping and risk assessment) may also be initiated after identification of nonconformance and becomes part of corrective action.

ISO 9000:2005 Defines Preventive action, 'action to eliminate the cause of potential nonconformity or other undesirable situation.'

Different examples are sighted to explain Correction, Corrective Action and Preventive Action initiated through an incident.

A person suffers a heart attack:

Actions	Category
Goes to doctor	Correction/Remedial Action
Doctor gives first aid	Correction/Remedial Action
Doctor examine and prescribes different tests	Root cause analysis
Doctor treats and prescribes medicine	Correction/Remedial Action
Patient adopts a healthy lifestyle	Corrective Acton
Patient identified his friends and family at risk of heart disease	Preventive Action
Family and friends of patient starts living a healthy lifestyle	Preventive action

A person slips on wet stairs in office:

Actions	Category
Person given first aid and sent to hospital for further treatment	Correction/Remedial Action
Wet floor dried to prevent any further accident	Correction/Remedial Action
EHS officer investigates the matter	Root cause analysis
Cleaning of Floor rescheduled to non-office hours or times of less traffic	Corrective Action
EHS officer recommends anti slip mat and strips to be used in staircase, use of Caution Signs such as ‘Wet Floor, Be Careful’ recommended during cleaning procedures	Corrective Action
EHS officer inspects all the staircases in the plant and other locations and recommends use of  anti slip mat and strips and Caution Signs	Preventive Action

A market complaint resulted in recall

Action	Category
Market complaint reported and verified by quality and sales department, immediate recall initiated	Correction
Investigation performed by inter-departmental investigation committee and identified the cause as	Root cause analysis
Change in manufacturing step recommended	Corrective Action
Sampling plan modified for stringent control	Corrective Action
Implementation of risk assessment for new and upcoming process for risk identification	Preventive Action If risk assessment is already practiced no PA initiated

Reference:

ISO 9000: 2000: An A–Z Guide by David Hoyle

ISO 9000:2005 Quality management system: Fundamentals and Vocabulary

http://www.batalas.co.uk/how-to-guides/auditing-iso-basics/difference-correction-corrective-action-preventive-action/