Correction vs corrective action vs preventive action — what is the difference?

The failed alarm device

A smoke detector fails its annual test. The correction is to replace the detector. That is real work, it is necessary, and it is not a corrective action.

The corrective action asks why detectors fail here. Was the wrong specification procured for a humid corridor? Is there a maintenance step being skipped? Is something in the environment eating them? Whatever the answer, the corrective action changes it — so that the next detector does not fail for the same reason.

The preventive action takes that answer to the six identical detectors at the sister property, which have not failed yet and are going to.

The recurring water-temperature exceedance

An outlet reads below the required temperature. It gets flushed, it passes, the finding is closed. Next quarter, the same outlet, the same reading, the same closure.

The correction was performed faithfully every time. Nobody ever asked whether the circulation loop reaches that outlet at all — which is the corrective action, and which would have ended the cycle at the first attempt instead of the ninth.

Why auditors go straight here

Because it is the fastest way to tell an honest programme from a theatrical one. A file full of closed findings, each closed by a correction, is not evidence of control — it is evidence of a system that has been generating the same problems and resolving none of them, with excellent record-keeping.

ISO 9001’s Clause 10.2 requires the full loop: react, find the cause, act, and verify the action was effective. The correction is only the first word of that sentence.

Terms

• CAPA (Corrective and Preventive Action)