One of the most common misunderstandings internal auditors and auditees have is the differences between correction, corrective and preventive actions.

In layman’s terms correction is a quick fix of an actual problem, corrective action addresses the root cause of an actual problem and preventive action attempts to prevent a potential problem occurring.

If you want to see whether your internal auditors know the difference between correction and corrective try reviewing a sample of nonconformities which have been closed. You may be surprised to find that a number of actions have been taken as corrective whereas they were correction only.

Does it matter? Well if you don’t correct (no pun intended) auditor’s understanding then nonconformities will persist, and auditees will continue to regard corrections as corrective actions.

Preventive actions are easy to understand when dealing with environmental and/or health & safety management systems. Assessing and managing risk is an essential and specific requirement of these systems. For quality however, there is some confusion, with many people seeing prevention as being the action taken after a problem has occurred i.e. to prevent recurrence. This is not the case; preventive action is needed in the design of products and processes, Typically, failure modes effect analysis (FMEA) is often used in support of preventive actions.

Related Posts

1. Internal Auditing — Turning negatives into positives
2. Internal Auditor Competence – The Key to A Successful Management System
3. Two Tier Internal Auditing
4. Understanding process effectiveness
5. A perfect nonconformity report

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