Corrective Action Plan: Definition, Benefits, Steps & Tips

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A corrective action plan is a tool that most project manager uses in their daily work life. CAP process helps you to gather information about a specific problem and solve it.

Table of Content

1. What is a corrective action plan?

Firstly, the corrective action plan (CAP) is a report that aims to raise the quality of the process or product. Secondly, the report should include a problem statement. Lastly, cause analysis and measurements to fix the roots.

Secondly, CAP covers all about the process such as the timeline, resources, and documentation for each key component. Also, monitoring the process or production line of the product is one of the key components of the report.

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Thirdly, CAP should also add all the responsible parties to the process. Also, implementing a corrective action plan has its own difficulties.

2. What are the benefits of an effective corrective action plan?

Consequently, the corrective action plan (CAP) is the most important documentation when it comes to quality management tools. You can inspect the process and gather all the information that you find, then process the information into a meaningful corrective action plan. Moreover, the document will show you how to implement any changes and raise the quality of a process or product.

Therefore, CAP helps you to understand what is wrong and what could be better. In this case, the key component of the CAP report is finding the problem and the cause analysis of the problem. Also, giving meaningful solutions is crucial in the CAP.

3. What are the elements of a corrective action plan?

First of all, there are 8 different elements that make a great corrective action plan. While making an action plan formatting, you have to make sure that all of the elements are in the corrective action plan process (CAP process).

To demonstrate the 8 elements of corrective actions:

Following this, knowing what to do, helps you to write a successful action plan format. Unfortunately, Writing the right action plan format does not mean you will have a great result at the end of the report. As an illustration, you can have a completely right action plan format but still, the report could be useless. Obviously, you should fill the elements with good inferences and insights.

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4. Corrective Action vs. Preventive Action

When you make the research, you will find 2 different file types which are the corrective action plan and the preventive action plan. While the corrective action plan analysis (CAPA) starts after a process finish but preventive action analysis starts before the process finish. It can be held before the start or while production in the process.

5. How to implement a corrective action plan?

Undeniably, there is an implementation way for the corrective action plan. Therefore, there are 8 steps to making the right corrective action analysis.

Find the Problem

Arguably, the most important thing about a CAP, finding a problem. Corrective action analysis aims to find a problem first. Then you can keep continuing to other steps.

Roots of the Problem

Secondly, finding the problem is an important step but it is just the beginning of corrective action analysis. After you find the problem, now you should go into a deep analysis of the process and discover the roots of the problem. In most cases, the roots of the problem are one single thing. When you find the roots, it is time to scratch out the case. CAP process steps are connecting each other tightly.

Create a Solution within the Deep Roots

Based on the corrective action analysis (CAPA), you can create a resolution. Scratching out the roots of the problem might demand exclusive authority. If you don’t have the authority to make necessary adjustments, you can design and show your resolution to your superiors.

Resourcing

Obviously, some solutions require different resources. It could be raw material or capital… it really depends on your solution way. Whether it’s financial, human, or material sources, it is crucial to understand what you need to fix the problem.

Sharing is Caring

Definitely, all relevant stakeholders expect to know the CAP since the corrective action analysis can change anything in their workforce. You should clearly explain the corrective action planner and hand them the corrective action report for them to understand all the actions deeply.

Start the Action!

After all this planning and designing the actions, now you should start putting the corrective action analysis into real-life business practices. You should make sure everybody who is affected by the CAP process, knows and understand the plan’s requirements.

After Action Analysis

While making the corrective action plan real, keep analyzing the changes and the results of the actions. Since, some actions might sound great on the corrective action report, but they won’t just work in real business life.

6. How to create a corrective action plan report?

Nevertheless, you know how to make a report but do you know how to write it properly? Writing a CAP properly is as important as knowing how to do it.

Following this, you have 2 options to make a proper CAP: you can add a ready-to-use template to your collection or you can create a corrective action form from scratch.

Ready-to-Use Template

First of all, there are several benefits of using a ready-to-use template. Such as:

Creating a Corrective Action Plan from Scratch

First of all, creating a CAP from scratch requires a lot of energy and time. Since you have 2 different jobs: making a meaningful corrective action analysis and creating a proper design to explain every detail about your basically.

Moreover, you should have some structure, and the structure has to include:

7. Corrective Action Plan Template

Afterward, Someka has different templates that specialize in CAP and many more supportive reporting styles. The below template will be a perfect helper for you:

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– This diagram is created on Corrective Action Plan Excel Template by Someka –

This ready-to-use template will help you conduct your CAP report with a sleek design.

Besides, Someka has also other templates that you can use in your action plans. You can check our Action Plan Template or Fit Gap Analysis Template to analyze your goals and gaps.

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8. FAQs

Firstly, Lean six sigma reports are pretty similar to corrective action planners. While lean six sigma reports identify the problem, CAP makes resolution methods.

First of all, the CAP is one of the most common tools in quality management reporting. The CAP helps you to raise the quality of a process. Also, you can identify the problems and their roots.

Moreover, Six Sigma is a great tool to examine huge processes. Also, six sigma gathers information to find a root cause and its process step. Finding the problem and its causes is a part of the CAP process.

Lastly, CAPA is a tool that project managers use to find problems that already exist. On the other hand, DMAIC analyzes the process and keeps working, and is keen to find improvement points.

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