If a company has many problems or challenges and no quality management system, then what if they started a simple nonconformity and corrective action process? Perhaps in time, this would lead to a system very similar to ISO 9001 or AS9100.
Obviously, this type of system would not have anything recognizable to ISO 9001 such as paragraph structures and terminology, but if the nonconformity and corrective actions were taken seriously, then a solution for every single problem would eventually be implemented, resulting in an effective quality management system.
Here are some examples of that. If a problem in production arises and, after a root cause analysis, it is determined that the root cause of the problem was that the documentation used was not current, then the solution would be to create and implement a documentation management system to control the documents and revisions and to control access to them. Similarly, if a problem arises in a process and the root cause is determined to be a lack of training, then a complete training system would be created and implemented.
I would imagine that this process of nonconformity, corrective action, and root cause analysis, including actions to prevent the problem from reoccurring, would take years, but would eventually result in a complete quality management system similar to or better than an ISO 9001 quality management system.
Therefore, if we were to chart improvement in a company such as this, the company would be continually improving day by day, month by month, as it addresses each and every problem that occurred within the organization and implemented a solution based on their root cause analysis.
If you break it down financially, that organization should also see incredible improvements by lowering the cost of errors and improving efficiencies throughout the organization as they implement those corrective actions.
Would it be fair to say that a simple nonconformity report starts the process to continuous improvement? If we take this a little bit further, could we say that continuous improvement leads to growth?
Then what happens when there are no nonconformities and no problems to report? I would assume that without any nonconformities there would be no improvement and therefore there would be no growth. That organization would become stagnant since they wouldn’t be improving but perhaps, they would see it as not getting any worse. However, if their competitors were continually improving, and they were functioning at the status quo, would they be getting worse in relationship to their competitors?
I don’t have all the answers here, but often as I look through my clients’ nonconformity and corrective action systems, I may see in a company of 100 or more people a total of five or 10 nonconformities issued throughout the year. Many of those, if not all, are directly related to a pass/fail scenario, such as a final inspection or in-process inspection.
If I look at all the nonconformities and asked how many were sales related, contract review related, delivery related, performance related, accounting, shipping, or other processes besides inspection, what would the answer be? I think I’ve seen many companies who have no nonconformities in most of their processes and that their nonconformities are predominantly focused on inspection results.
The same would go for internal audits, whereby the results of an audit are much like a nonconformity, whereby they lead to a corrective action and improvement. In fact, an internal audit should go a step further and suggest opportunities for improvement as well. But again, what happens when a large company has a yearly internal audit and the results are one nonconformity or none and one or two opportunities for improvement recommended? That is very close to zero. That is what I most often see in organizations.
Everybody feels good with these results. Audits are performed, a few nonconformities are issued and addressed, and they feel like they will pass their next ISO 9001 or AS9100 audit. After all, isn’t this why they are doing it in the first place?
So, if no nonconformities or internal audit findings are issued, then one may say that that organization has no improvements happening. Additionally, one could also say that if there were 500 different unique nonconformities and internal audit recommendations that result in true corrective actions determined and implemented within a year, then one could assume that the organization is improving every day, every month, and every year.
Perhaps we should start looking at a better way to issue nonconformities or to better perform internal audits to question everything we do, in every department, with a goal to specifically issue nonconformities or opportunities for improvement so that we initiate corrective action. Perhaps nonconformities are a good thing instead of being viewed as a negative event.
If we were to bring this one step further, perhaps we should be issuing a nonconformity to any process or department that has no nonconformities to highlight how the system of nonconformities is simply not working.
I am certain that in each process, accounting, purchasing, production, sales and all others, we could find areas where a nonconformity could be issued.
Accounting:
- Were all invoices received by the customer on the planned date?
- Did suppliers receive their payments on the date stipulated by the terms?
- Did the month-end close happen on the planned date?
Purchasing:
- Were orders placed with suppliers who aren’t on the approved supplier list, or whose approval has lapsed?
- Were purchase orders issued with missing or unclear requirements?
- Did we have to pay expedited shipping fees to receive the product on time?
Sales:
- Were promised delivery dates respected?
- Were orders accepted from a customer without a complete review of the terms and conditions?
- Were orders entered incorrectly, including wrong price, part number, revision, specifications, or shipping information, resulting in rework?
I think that most organizations started their nonconformity and corrective action systems to satisfy the requirements of their customers, ISO 9001 and/or AS9100. After years of operating their systems, they become desensitized to the real meaning of issuing nonconformities and audit findings. They view them as negative and worse off; they aspire to have zero. Zero nonconformities and/or audit findings may result in zero improvement and zero growth.
Maybe it’s time to rethink your nonconformity and internal audit systems, retrain and rejuvenate them so that everyone in your organization understands the advantages of issuing nonconformities and audit findings, which results in solutions and improvement.
This is why I believe that the biggest nonconformity is No Nonconformity.