Business Case: Automating the ISO CPAR/CAPA Process

The Corrective and Preventive Action Request Process (CPAR/CAPA)

The CPAR process is similar to Non-Conformance Reports (NCRs), Supplier Corrective Action Requests (SCARs), and Corrective and Preventive Action (CAPAs).

The main objective of these PROCESSES is to spot issues, determine what causes them, and implement a fix.

Organizations encounter these PROCESSES when implementing Quality Management Systems like the ISO 9000 series.

This is a great process for improving business operations.  All businesses should implement similar practices even without certification.

Challenges for CPAR/CAPA

Tracking Progress

Tracking the progress of an entire CPAR/CAPA process is quite complicated.  This mostly depends on the type of issue that is being addressed.

The scope of the issue might involve different departments and very long timelines for implementing fixes.

Tracking due dates and accountabilities gets complicated and costs many man-hours.

Collaboration

Collaboration and coordination work introduces another layer of complexity into the mix. The number of phone calls and emails to keep each stakeholder updated can be quite substantial.

Documentation

Documentation is quite tedious.  Employees get into version control issues, overwrites, deletions, misplaced files, and even worse wrong publications.

Using an Automated Workflow System for CPAR

By introducing a workflow system, coordination work is made much simpler.  Routing is done by the software.  Due dates and reminders are all done by the workflow system itself. 

The workflow will send out reminders to all task owners and track people who are responsible and accountable for the tasks.

All documents and versions will be stored in one workflow process, nothing gets lost.