A holistic model for the proactive reduction of non-conformities within new industrial technologies

Non-Conformity Management is a critical activity for each organization striving to achieve the required performance standards and obtain customers' satisfaction, particularly when new technologies are introduced. This activity is usually based on Root Cause Analysis, which is able to solve each relevant nonconformity and is even more important while introducing new technologies and products. A significant limitation in the use of RCA approach relates to the resolution path, usually being very specific for each nonconformity. This paper describes a holistic model capable of managing and proactively reducing non-conformities. This approach allows the identification and resolution of entire sets of nonconformities which, if considered as separate, would appear of little interest; yet, if properly abstracted from the specific problems and regrouped in appropriate holistic clusters, the approach may highlight new critical NCs families to focus on that would not have been detected otherwise, thus allowing further business improvement potential.