General quality and compliance
Root Cause Analysis and Corrective Action
Find the real cause, fix it so it stays fixed, and prove it
Short course · 3 hours · Certificate does not expire
Most corrective action reports fail for the same reasons: the problem was never defined, the cause stopped at a person, the action was a reminder, and the effectiveness review was a signature. This course teaches the discipline that avoids each of those failures, in the order a real investigation runs: define the problem, preserve the evidence, find and verify the causes, choose actions that do not depend on memory, deploy them across similar products and processes, and prove they worked.
You will work through 5 Whys, is / is not, fishbone diagrams, fault tree basics, the three legs of a cause (why it was made, why it was not detected, why the system allowed it) and the full 8D method on one realistic case from an aerospace machining supplier. Human factors are treated as causes to be understood, as AS9100D requires, not as labels to be applied.
The course is anchored in ISO 9001:2026 clause 10.2, AS9100D clause 10.2.1 and the CAPA requirements of ISO 13485:2016 clauses 8.5.2 and 8.5.3, so it serves quality, manufacturing and supplier quality staff in aerospace, defense and medical device organizations. It also shows you how to answer a customer corrective action request in a way that gets accepted first time, and what an auditor looks for when sampling your closed actions.
The course closes with a 20-question examination drawn from a bank of 30. On passing you receive a PlanetISO Certificate of Completion with lifetime access to the course content and your certificate. The certificate does not expire.
What people learn
- Distinguish containment, correction, corrective action and preventive action, and decide when a problem deserves formal root cause analysis.
- Write a problem statement using 5W2H and is / is not that contains no assumed cause or solution.
- Preserve evidence, build a timeline from records and gather data at the place of work.
- Apply 5 Whys, fishbone and fault tree methods, verify cause and effect, and identify occurrence, escape and systemic causes including human factors.
- Lead an 8D investigation from D0 to D8 with outputs that a customer will accept.
- Select corrective actions using the hierarchy of controls, write action plans with owners and dates, and deploy them horizontally.
- Define effectiveness criteria in advance, verify effectiveness with data, write the report and respond to a customer corrective action request.