Preventive actions

Before any remedial or preventive actions are implemented, an evaluation should be conducted as to appHcabiUty to the specific plant. The evaluation should continue while the actions are in progress. The main action should be to take measures to reduce the ingress of contaminants into the steam generator by using more rehable materials, such as in the condenser tubes, to reduce leakage. Contaminant control equipment, such as full-flow condensate deminerali2ers, should also be employed. 

The possible remedial and preventive actions are hot soaks and drains during cooldown to help remove soluble deposited material, chemical cleaning to remove corrosion products and reduce the pressure drop (see Metal surface treatments), and reduced corrosion product transport into OTSG using amines other than ammonia in feedwater (14). 

Describe possible preventive actions to limit deterioration of books and other print material in libraries. 

Arrangements to monitor the network - to identify any potential national gas supply emergency and to coordinate preventive action. 

Monitoring and measurement Non-conformance and corrective and preventive action Records... 

External events are accident initiators that do not fit well into the central PSA structure used for "internal events." Some "external events" such as fire due to ignition of electrical wires, or flood from a ruptured service water pipe occur inside the plant. Others, such as earthquakes and tornados, occur outside of the plant. Either may cause failures in a plant like internal events. External initiators may cause multiple failures of independent equipment thereby preventing action of presumably redundant protection systems. For example, severe offsite flooding may fli 1 the pump room and disable cooling systems. An earthquake may impede evacuation of the nearby populace. These multiple effects must be considered in the analysis of the effects of external events. 

There are three references to the management review in other sections of the standard preventive action information (clause 4.14.3), internal audit results (clause 4.17.1), and changes to procedures (clause 4.14.1.1) are required to be submitted for management... 

This requirement is similar to that in clause 4.14.3 under Preventive action since the data collected for preventive action serves a similar purpose. In one case an analysis of company-level data serves to identify overall trends and predict potential failures that will affect achievement of the goals. In the preventive action case, the data serves to identify local and overall trends and predict potential failures that will affect achievement of specified requirements for the product, process, and quality system. It would be sensible to develop a data collection and analysis system that serves all levels in the organization, with criteria at each level for reporting data upwards as necessary. You should not treat this requirement separately from that for preventive action since the same data should be used. However, the explanation given in clause 4.1.5 of Operational performance does include some factors that may not be addressed in your preventive action procedures. 

Mistake-proofing is a preventive action and like FMEA is addressed in Part 2 Chapter 14. 

The standard requires the corrective and preventive action procedures to be followed in addressing design failures. 

Preventive action cannot be taken on a failure that has occurred (see ISO 8402) except on other future designs. What is intended is that remedial action is taken to correct the design fault and corrective action taken to prevent the same failure arising again either in the same design or in other designs. 

Returning to the standard, this clause also only addresses the correction and prevention of nonconformities, i.e. departures from the specified requirements. It does not address the correction of defects, of inconsistencies, of errors, or in fact any deviations from your internal specifications or requirements. As explained in Part 2 Chapter 13, if we apply the definition of nonconformity literally, a departure from a requirement that is not included in the Specified Requirements is not a nonconformity and hence the standard is not requiring corrective action for such deviations. Clearly this was not the intention of the requirement because preventing the recurrence of any problem is a sensible course of action to take, providing it is economical. Economics is, however, the crux of the matter. If you include every requirement in the Specified Requirements , you not only overcomplicate the nonconformity controls but the corrective and preventive action controls as well. 

The corrective action requirements fail to stipulate when corrective action should be taken except to say that they shall be to a degree appropriate to the risks encountered. There is no compulsion for the supplier to correct nonconformities before repeat production or shipment of subsequent product. However, immediate correction is not always practical. You should base the timing of your corrective action on the severity of the nonconformities. All nonconformities are costly to the business, but correction also adds to the cost and should be matched to the benefits it will accrue (see later under Risks). Any action taken to eliminate a nonconformity before the customer receives the product or service could be considered a preventive action. By this definition, final inspection is a preventive action because it should prevent the supply of nonconforming product to the customer. However, an error becomes a nonconformity when detected at any acceptance stage in the process, as indicated in clause 4.12 of the standard. Therefore an action taken to eliminate a potential nonconformity prior to an acceptance stage is a preventive action. This rules out any inspection stages as being preventive action measures - they are detection measures only. 

Figure 14.1 Ciause reiationships with the corrective and preventive action eiement...

The standard requires the supplier to establish, document, and maintain documented procedures for implementing corrective and preventive action. 

As the source of nonconformities are so varied it may not be practical to have a single corrective or preventive action procedure. It may be more practical to embody corrective action provisions in the following procedures ... 

Preventive action provisions on the other hand may be embodied in the following procedures ... 

The standard only requires a procedure for implementing corrective and preventive action and not for determining it, although the requirements of clauses 4.14.2 and 4.14.3 do require the actions to be determined - presumably before being implemented ... 

Assessing the degree of corrective and preventive action necessary (4.14.1.1)... 

The standard requires that any corrective or preventive action taken to eliminate the causes of actual or potential nonconformities is to a degree appropriate to the magnitude of problems and commensurate with the risks encountered. 

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