After the revision: corrective actions

The report is signed, the shortage written off, everyone relieved. Six months later a new revision shows the same shortage on the same positions. The reason is simple: the difference was "closed" in the books, but whatever caused it stayed where it was. The report says the count is finished; the revision's task is not yet done. The main work starts afterwards: finding the cause and removing it with a corrective action.

Three different jobs

People often mix up the work that follows a revision, so keep it apart:

• correction: bring the figure in the books in line with reality (book in, write off). It closes today's difference;
• corrective action: remove the cause that was found. It stops the error coming back;
• preventive action: see that the same error could exist in another warehouse, and close it in advance.

Many stop at the first. The real result comes from the second and third. In the case below, the correction is to document the replacements already given, backdated to when they happened; the corrective action is a new form and a named owner; the preventive action is to check whether returns and repairs also pass without paperwork in the same way.

From cause to action

Before choosing an action, ask "why?" three to five times in a row. An illustrative case: a household appliance warehouse finds 11 blenders missing, 11 × 450,000 = 4,950,000 so'm.

1. Why the shortage? Blenders replaced under warranty were handed to customers.
2. Why does the book not show it? The replacement went through without a document: the storekeeper gave out a new one and put the faulty one at the edge of a rack.
3. Why without a document? There is no replacement form, and the sales department settles the matter its own way.
4. Why no form? Nobody has been named owner of the process.

If the chain ends at "the employee is careless", do not stop: ask "how was carelessness possible?" The cause lies in the process, not the person. The last answer points to the action: not "the storekeeper should be more careful", but naming a process owner and introducing a form. Nine of the faulty blenders turned up behind a rack and were put on a separate list.

The action plan

The commission should not draw it up alone: let the process owners take part, because they know their own work best and will have to carry the action out. The commission points to the cause; the manager approves the plan. Make the plan a table: what is done, who does it, by when, and how we check. For the case above:

1. A warranty replacement form (in two copies). Owner: head of sales, five days. Check: at month end the number of forms must equal the number of replacements.
2. A marked rack and list for faulty goods. Owner: storekeeper, three days. Check: the rack is counted weekly.
3. A twenty-minute briefing for sales staff. Owner: head of sales, one week. Check: a signature sheet.
4. A weekly mini-count of the fifteen fastest-moving positions. Owner: internal controller, every Friday. Check: the result goes into the revision log.

Why plans fail

• "Be more careful" is not an action: an action is written as a step with a result;
• the owner is a department or "everyone", not one name;
• no deadline is set;
• the list has fifteen items, so none is finished; pick the three to five that matter most;
• nobody checks whether the action was done;
• no time or money is set aside for it: the form is not printed, there is no rack, nobody found an hour for the briefing.

Checking the result

Thirty to sixty days after the action is in place, recount the same positions, and at the next scheduled revision check them first. Record the result in the revision log. If the shortage comes back, the cause was not fully found: return to the chain and ask one more "why?".

A one-page status report to the manager once a month is enough: how many actions are open, how many are done, how many are overdue. An overdue action that shows on the list is harder to forget.

Conclusion

A revision ends not with the report but with the removal of the cause. It sounds simple, yet this is the step that many warehouses skip. If you have a cause, an action, an owner, a deadline and a way to check, the plan works. The Reviziya team can help you draw up a plan of corrective actions.