Investigating Non-Conformances

As a food auditor an important part of the job is identifying non-conformances during the audit process. Unfortunately, many food businesses struggle with what is required to rectify non-conformances. Any non-conformance identified during an external or internal audit should be seen as an opportunity to really get in and resolve an issue before it escalates to a point where significant damage can occur to the business.



After an issue or non-conformance has been identified the business should not only seek to rectify the issue immediately but to also investigate the root cause of the problem. This means really finding out why the problem occurred in the first place. There are plenty of different models out there for investigating the cause of non-conformances including Brainstorming, Root cause analysis, The 5 Whys and Cause & Effect Diagrams.

I really like the 5 Whys model as it reminds me of my kids when they constantly question why they are not allowed to do something.

The following example shows how the method can be used in a food manufacturing business:

Non-conformance: No paper towel at wash hand basin

Q: Why is there no paper towel supplied to the wash hand basin?
A: Cleaner did not refill
Q: Why did the cleaner not refill?
A: Could not locate any stock
Q: Why was there no stock?
A: Stock had not been ordered
Q: Why had the stock not been ordered?
A: The purchasing officer was not informed that stock was low.
Q: Why were purchasing not informed?
A: The cleaner didn’t know who to tell.
Q: Why didn’t the cleaner know who to tell?
A: They have not been adequately trained in the procedure

As you can see, your questions may not always be limited to “5 Whys” – it could be more or it could be less. The band-aid solution in this case would be to just refill the paper towel dispenser.

Does your business apply the “band-aid” to non conformances or investigate the root cause? If you continually receive the same types of customer complaints or the same issues are being identified for example at each GMP audit that you do, you are most likely not doing anything or just using a band-aid solution.

I challenge you to now have a look at your last GMP inspection that you did and see if:

(1) All the issues that you identified have been rectified
(2) The root cause has been investigated and documented
(3) Suitable controls have been put into place to prevent a re-occurrence of the non-conformance.

For more information on any of the models used to investigate non-conformances just do a search using your internet search tool.

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