Volume 7 · Issue 8 · August 2002

Contents

Page 3…

Harnessing the Elusive Concept of Preventive Action

Denise E. Robitaille writes that perhaps the greatest disservice done to the fundamental management tool of Preventive Action is to couple it intimately with a process, Corrective Action, to which it is only remotely related. The result is that neither is implemented to its full advantage. Robitaille discusses what PA really is and distinguishes it from the other process and explores how to make PA a real procedure that is cost-effective, produces measurable, verifiable results, gives benefits and will be seen as the best hidden QMS tool you have. She also provides a sampling of PAs to illustrate how PARs are generated, where they originate and their relationship to the various processes within an organization’s operations.