What are Corrective and Preventive Actions?

Corrective and Preventive Action are actions taken to address nonconformities and their root cause and to prevent the nonconformance from reocurring. This is a key part of your ISO 9000 continual improvement process.

Corrective and Preventive Action Procedures which you can use in your system. They describe the process for eliminating the cause of nonconformances through the use of a corrective action system and the process for eliminating the potential causes of nonconformances through the use of a preventive action system.

Corrective and Preventive Action Forms are used for documenting and tracking corrective and preventive actions and the actions taken.

The Corrective Action Procedure describes the process for eliminating the cause of nonconformances through the use of a corrective action system. Includes the process for initiating a corrective action request (CAR). (Any employee should be able to initiate a CAR.) Follow the process for tracking, investigating, implementing corrective action, following up and closing corrective actions. We also recommend including a step of reporting to Management Review.

The 9000 Store has a separate procedure for Preventive Action instead of combining it with Corrective Action because we have found that auditors interpret the standard to mean that separate, individual procedures are required. The Preventive Action Procedure describes the process for eliminating the potential causes of nonconformances through the use of a preventive action system. The Corrective Action and Preventive Action Procedures & Forms are sold as a set at The9000Store and are also available in the Quality Manual and Procedures Package.