The Non-Conformity Report (NCR) is a document that identifies and records discrepancies between the requirements defined by quality standards and the actual condition of a product, service, or process. It can be created by any area of a given organization, although it is more common in the manufacturing, production, and operations sectors.
Non-conformity is an event where a product, service, or process fails to meet quality requirements. Identifying and correcting such problems helps companies improve their processes, products, and services, ensuring compliance with legislation in the process.
To be effective, the document needs to be well-organized. It should help readers understand the threat behind the violation of requirements and indicate the actions that should be taken to address the problem.
That’s why, in this article, we will tell you everything you need to know to create an excellent non-conformity report. Here, you will discover what the NCR is for, who should create the report, and how to prepare it.
To complete, you also have access to an exclusive template to use as a basis for your own NCR.
What is a Non-Conformity Report for?
A Non-Conformity Report (NCR) is an essential tool in a company’s Quality Management System (QMS). It serves to record all deviations that occur in production, processes, products, or services.
The main function of the NCR is to allow the analysis of problems, the identification of their causes, and their proper treatment. This will enable the correction of deviations, ensuring the excellence and quality expected by managers and customers.
The NCR mainly serves to:
- Document Deviations: It records in detail all non-conformities, including origin, recurrence, requirement, description, scope, and corrective action.
- Analyze Problems: Facilitates the analysis of the causes of problems, allowing a deep understanding of process failures.
- Implement Corrections: Guides the implementation of corrective actions to resolve identified problems.
- Improve Processes: Assists in the continuous improvement of a company’s products, services, or processes.
- Ensure Compliance: Ensures that processes meet pre-established quality standards, such as ISO 9001 requirements.
- Promote a Quality Culture: Encourages all employees to identify and report non-conformities, promoting a culture of continuous improvement and shared responsibility for quality.
Identifying and addressing non-conformities is crucial to avoid losing customers and ensure their continuous satisfaction. By documenting and correcting failures, the company can prevent the recurrence of problems, improving the quality and efficiency of its operations.
Who Should Create a Non-Conformity Report?
The quality manager is responsible for identifying non-conformities. However, any employee can point out deviations. Additionally, everyone in the company has the responsibility to maintain quality and ensure customer satisfaction.
It is crucial to promote a culture where everyone feels comfortable recording non-conformities and suggesting improvements. The participation of all employees is fundamental to detecting failures and implementing effective corrections.
It is worth noting that the NCR is also often written by the head of a department, as well as other relevant people within the QMS.
But if you have management software like SoftExpert Suite, you can handle this much more easily. For example, you can acquire the Incident Registration Process, which allows you to standardize and digitize the process of creating an NCR.
This way, you avoid the same problems happening frequently and reduce the chance of non-conformities being resolved without proper registration. With SoftExpert Incident, you can monitor and investigate recorded incidents by standardizing and automating deviation logs.
How to Prepare a Non-Conformity Report
Preparing a Non-Conformity Report (NCR) is an important process to ensure quality and continuous improvement of processes in the company. It needs to describe the problem, assess its cause, and propose a corrective action.
After preparing the report, it is still necessary to monitor the implementation of its correction and train employees to avoid similar occurrences in the future. Follow the steps below to create an effective NCR:
1. Identify the Deviation and Determine Immediate Action
Start by verifying what the non-conformity is and determining if any immediate or urgent action needs to be taken. For example, ISO 9001:2015 suggests that you categorize one of the following actions to be taken:
- Correction
- Segregation
- Containment
- Return or suspension of products and services
- Inform the customer
- Obtain authorization for acceptance under concession
2. Provide a Detailed Description
The second step is to describe the problem with as much detail as possible. The person responsible for opening the NCR needs to answer four main questions about the detection of non-conformity:
- Who discovered the non-conformity?
- What was the verified problem?
- When was the non-conformity found?
- Where did the process failure occur?
Your notes should be clear and easy to understand, allowing the non-conformity to be investigated in the best possible way if necessary.
3. Analyze the Cause of the Non-Conformity
This step is especially important in the case of more complex non-conformities. In this situation, it is recommended that you conduct a cause analysis to understand the root of the problem more deeply.
At this stage, it is recommended to use tools such as the Ishikawa diagram or the 5 Whys to verify this origin. This way, your team can take the necessary measures to prevent the problem from occurring again.
4. Implement Corrective Actions
It’s time to create an action plan to ensure the implementation of corrective measures. This is the most important moment of the entire process, as it will allow the improvement of your organization.
If executed correctly, this plan will reduce the consequences of non-conformity and can even prevent small problems from becoming major headaches in the future. For this, you can create a correction or corrective action plan, depending on the size of the problem.
Therefore, you should choose between:
- Corrections: Activities that only deal with the consequences of a non-conformity. For example, if an internal audit did not take into account the entire scope of the management system, a possible correction would be to conduct another internal audit that deals with it in its entirety.
- Corrective Actions: This option goes beyond the previous one, as it analyzes the root cause of the non-conformity. With this, your team can focus on eliminating the true origin of the problem, eliminating the issue once and for all. To exemplify, think of that internal audit that did not consider the entire scope of the system — its root cause may have been an internal auditor who was not adequately trained.
5. Monitor and Verify Actions
After defining what type of action will be taken, it is important to monitor its implementation and verify its effectiveness. Document the results found and make adjustments if necessary.
Your report should already include the results of the actions taken to resolve the problem. If the non-conformity has not been resolved after implementing the planned actions, you will need to open another report with the details of the original non-conformity.
NCRs serve as a basis for management to review processes and find improvements. Therefore, it is important to categorize the reports based on the most important factors for that area of your business.
For example, you can separate them by the origin of the non-conformity or by the date of occurrence. Thus, when examining the information, it is possible to extract essential insights that will contribute to the continuous improvement of your organization.
6. Communicate and Train Your Employees
Inform everyone involved in the process about the non-conformity that occurred and the actions that were taken. Then promote training to prevent similar occurrences in the future.
In this way, you can improve awareness of the importance of quality management in your organization. This helps keep your organization’s problems under control, keeping the responsible person aware of what is happening and the actions that will be taken to prevent a recurrence.
By following these steps, your company can ensure that non-conformities are effectively addressed, contributing to greater customer satisfaction.
Conclusion
The Non-Conformity Report (NCR) is a tool that will help maintain quality standards and promote continuous improvement within any organization. It allows companies to identify failures, analyze their causes, and implement effective solutions.
This ensures compliance with regulations and customer satisfaction. By following the steps detailed in this article, your organization will be equipped to handle non-conformities proactively.
A robust non-conformity management process directly contributes to operational efficiency, customer trust, and the company’s reputation. With the exclusive NCR template presented here, you can standardize your processes, ensuring a systematic and efficient approach to managing deviations.
Looking for more efficiency and compliance in your operations? Our experts can help identify the best strategies for your company with SoftExpert solutions. Contact us today!
