25 Jan Recording Non-Conformances
Non-conformance is a common title for production or service mistakes, scrap, waste, and/or re-work.
If this happens in your business, are they recorded?
What is the cost to your business (10%, 15%, 20%, 25% or more) in potential profit?
This is where the online Hasmate program comes into its own. Hasmate can provide you with the means to record the non-conformance, the cost, and to produce reports to present to your management team, to identify trends, and then close the gaps so the number of non-conformances are reduced. Continuous improvement = profit!
How To Record Non-Conformances in the Hasmate program
For this example, let’s assume that you produce widgets, and in the current run, 100 widgets were painted the wrong colour.
This may then be directly notified to the manager, or recorded (offline – e.g. using a Yellow Card) as a non-conformance.
Non-conformances can be added into the “Miscellaneous” module.
To record this information, you can go to “Miscellaneous” on the main navigation, and then on the search page, click “Add“.
An explanation of the fields are below:
- Description – note down what the non-conformance was. (Note – the description is used as the name of the miscellaneous issue).
- Date – when did the non-conformance occur?
- Miscellaneous Type – this is a “Master File” that you can add to. If there isn’t a “Non-Conformance” option in the dropdown, make sure you add one in. You can do this by going to “Master Files” in the main navigation, clicking on “Miscellaneous Type“, seeing what options are already there, and clicking “Add” to add your own in. For more information about “Master Files”, click here.
- Employee – which employee was connected to this non-conformance (if appropriate). (Note – you can only connect it to one.)
- Business Level 1/2/3 = this is how you connect the non-conformance to a part of the business. This is a compulsory field.
- Contractor – was this non-conformance connected to a contractor or supplier, rather than an employee?
- Location Type – what type of location did this occur in? (Some clients have this set up as indoor and outdoor – others have it set up different). For more information about “Master Files”, click here.
- Location – what was the specific location this occurred in? E.g. this could be a particular workshop, room, etc. in the business. For more information about “Master Files”, click here.
- Folder Path/File Path/Image Folder Path – these are fields you can use if you have more information saved somewhere on an external computer, and you want to show where this is saved. You don’t have to use these fields.
Once you’ve added some information regarding the non-conformance, click the “Save” button. This will release other sections – including “Risk Assessment“, “Corrective Actions”, “Review History“, “Images“, and “Attachments“.
The “Risk Assessment” section is where you can assess the risk of this non-conformance occurring.
The “Corrective Actions” section is where you can note down what changes are going to happen to avoid this non-conformance happening again.
- Corrective Action – what have you done to correct this non-conformance?
- Preventative Action – what have you done to prevent this non-conformance from happening again?
- Non Conformance and Corrective Action Cost – how much did this non-conformance cost your business? E.g. the cost of materials, cost of employees, cost of implementing corrective actions, etc.
- Document Changes – did you amend any documentation (e.g. safe operating procedures, etc.) because of this non-conformance? Make sure that this is also noted against the document in the “Documents” module.
- Responsible Employee – who is responsible for fixing/resolving this non-conformance?
- Actioned By Employee – who fixed or resolved this non-conformance?
- Next Review Date – this will create an alert to remind you to review whether the corrective and preventative actions you’ve implemented have helped prevent another non-conformance like this.
The “Review History” section will show the reviews you’ve undertaken – e.g. every time you click “Edit”, and click the “Add Review” button beside the “Next Review Date” field in “Corrective Actions”.
Reporting Non-Conformances
Once you have entered (and saved) all the information about the non-conformance, click the “Profile” button on the top right hand side of the screen, and a printable version of the information will show on your screen. From there, you could print this, or save as a PDF to email to somebody. The printable profile can be used for toolbox talks, meetings, etc. – where non-conformances are discussed and reviewed.
If you are wanting reports on how many non-conformances you’ve had over a time period, go to “Reporting” on the main navigation, then click on “Community Reports“. If you click “Miscellaneous” as the report type and then “Search“, you’ll find a report called “Non-Conformances Report“. From there, you can click “Preview“.
This particular report has parameters – choose a miscellaneous type (1 or more), and choose a date range for the non-conformances to occur. Once you’ve chosen what you require, click “Submit“.
The report will now be displayed.
From here, if you’re happy with the report, you can export it. At the top of the report, are a number of buttons, including:
The first button allows you to print the report.
The second button allows you to print the first page.
The third button brings up a dropdown of 9 options (the most popular options are noted below):
- XLS
- XLSX
By clicking on one of these, you can then choose where to save the document on your computer, and what to name it.
NOTE – if this report doesn’t suit your requirements, please email Rachel to discuss the creation of a custom report.
If you have further questions or require training on using the Hasmate program, please contact Hasmate.