Causal Analysis - What are Certification Auditors Looking For

Causal analysis, RCA (root cause analysis), preventative action, these are all terms used interchangeably. What does this really mean in terms of certification, what are those external auditors really wanting to see during an audit?

In order to comply with the standards, your management system auditor will be looking to see that you undertaking correction and corrective action. Correction is where you move to fix the issue quickly and mitigate any fall out. Some examples might include undertaking immediate re-work, replacing an item for a client or cleaning up a spill.

Corrective action on the other hand is where you try and work out the contributing factors, and then design a solution to make sure the issue does not happen again. This may involve less immediate actions such as re-training staff, changing a procedure, or implementing a new work flow solution.

Corrective action is all about getting to the bottom of why issues occur is a key requirement in all management system standards. This is because the standards are built on the premise of continual improvement. In order to improve, you want to give yourself the best chance of an issue not happening again.

The management system auditor will be assessing that you have a process in your management system for ensuring both correction and corrective action have taken place, and that you have a system for determining when causal analysis is appropriate.

Not every incident or issue will warrant a full-blown investigation, this would be very resource intensive and not particularly value add. The auditor will also be looking for the following:

• Your causal analysis looks at multiple factors, such as people, process, equipment, etc.
• The solution you come up with actually addresses the contributing factors.
• You have a system/process in place to go back at some stage and evaluate whether the corrective actions you put in place were effective.

While these things can all be done manually, CertCrowd has the provision to record all of this for you in an easily accessible format where you can set up reminders to evaluate effectiveness down the track. The evaluation of effectiveness is an often overlooked compliance requirement of the standards.

So there you have it, fixing, investigating why it occurred and review of the solution you put in place! There are the elements that are examined at your external audit.