From a safety hazard on a construction site to a defect on a production line or a missed step in a patient care checklist, corrective action matters in every industry where mistakes cost money and put people at risk.
A well-written corrective action report allows you to track each issue from the moment it’s found until the fix is confirmed.
In this guide, we’ll cover:
- How to write a corrective action report
- A corrective action report template with the fields your team needs
- The difference between a correction and a corrective action
- How digital forms help your team follow up after the report is filed
Call to action: Fill in corrective action reports on site. Try doForms for free
How To Write A Corrective Action Report
Most corrective action reports start with an issue that has been spotted, a customer complaint, an incident, or a near miss.
Although the industry and the source of the problem may differ, filling them out typically follows the same steps.
Describe The Finding
Write down what happened, where and when.
Be specific, so anyone checking the document can understand it, even if they go through it a few months later.
Don’t use general language like “A damaged rack in a warehouse.” Instead, include details like “Front upright rack in Aisle 14, bay 3, dented about 4 inches above the base plate, found during the weekly rack inspection.”
Attach photos, note who found the issue and record the source.
If the finding breaks a specific requirement, such as an Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) standard or a company procedure, name it clearly in the report.
Take Immediate Action
Before investigating the cause, make sure the problem can’t cause more damage. That might include:
- Emptying a damaged rack and marking it as out of use
- Separating parts that may be defective
- Pulling unsafe equipment from service
Record each action, the person’s name and the time. This information should be written in a separate field, so nobody thinks it refers to the final solution.
Find The Root Cause
OSHA and the EPA urge employers to run a root cause analysis after incidents and near misses.
This is important because fixing only the immediate cause may leave the underlying failure in place.
The 5 Whys method works well for most field and operational issues. You begin with the initial problem and ask why it occurred, then continue to ask why for each subsequent answer until you reach a gap your team can solve, for example,
- A missing procedure step
- An unclear instruction
- A check nobody is responsible for
Record the method you used and who took part. Talk to drivers, technicians and crew leads because they often spot causes that other people may miss.
Define The Corrective Action
State an action for each root cause you identified. If you found two causes, you will likely need two actions.
Write each action as a specific change, for example, “Install column guards on all 22 aisle-end uprights.”
Entries like “Retrain staff” or “Be more careful” are hard to verify and easy to forget.
Also check whether the same cause could affect other sites, production lines or crews, then extend the action to them.
Assign An Owner & Due Date
Assign each action to one person and set a realistic deadline.
Add budget approval for new equipment or time on the training schedule.
Verify That The Action Worked
Decide how you’ll measure success and when you’ll check the results.
This can be:
- Zero new rack strikes over 60 days
- A defect rate back under target for three batches in a row
- A clean result on the next audit or inspection
- No repeat customer complaints about the same issue for 90 days
If the problem is not solved, reopen the corrective action report and go back to the root cause section. Reoccurrences can mean that the cause you found was either wrong or incomplete.
Close The Report
Once the verification is complete, you can close the report. Note down the result, who approved the closure and the date.
Keep the closed record on file. Organizations certified to ISO 9001 must keep evidence of each nonconformity, the actions taken and the results of corrective action.
A complete record can help outside of audits. An insurer reviewing a workers’ compensation claim may want to see what changed after the incident, and a customer who received a damaged shipment may want proof the cause was fixed.
Corrective Action Report Template
When every supervisor fills in the same fields, reports from different shifts and sites become easy to compare.
Here’re the fields you should have in your document.
- Report details: Report number, the date it was opened and the site or department
- Reported by: Name and role of the person who found the problem
- Source: Inspection, audit, customer complaint, incident or near miss
- Problem description: What happened, where and when, with photos and information about any requirement that was broken
- Risk level: Low, medium or high, plus who may be affected
- Immediate action: What was done right away, the person responsible and the time
- Root cause: The method used, who took part and the cause the team identified
- Corrective actions: Each change as a specific task linked to the root cause
- Owner and due date: One named person and a deadline for each action
- Verification: How success will be measured, the check date and the result
- Closure: Who approved it, the date and the supporting evidence
Call to action: Report, assign and verify every fix from your phone or tablet. Start your free doForms trial
Correction vs. Corrective Action: What’s The Difference
Some people use the two terms interchangeably, but quality and safety programs approach them as separate steps.
A correction deals with a problem that has already happened, such as reworking a faulty batch or pulling equipment out of service. It typically happens right away, often before anyone knows what caused the problem.
A corrective action targets the root cause that was identified, so the problem doesn’t come back. Because it depends on the investigation, it can take days or weeks to implement it.
Some findings only need a correction, such as a one-off typo on a delivery form. If this is the case, note the information in the corrective action report so reviewers can see the cause was considered.
You may also see a third term, preventive action. It addresses a risk before any problem occurs, for example, installing guards at a new warehouse that hasn’t had a rack issue yet.
How Digital Corrective Action Reports Improve Follow-Up
The weak point in most corrective action processes is what happens after the report is filed.
If you’re using paper forms, it’s not uncommon to misplace the documents. Photos may stay on someone’s phone, and the person assigned to the task may never see the assignment or can forget about the due date.
Digitizing your corrective action report process keeps every step in one place, from initial completion to closing the report:
- The team member who spots the problem fills in the report on a phone or tablet right where it happened. If your platform works offline, they can do this even without an internet connection.
- They can attach photos, GPS location, a timestamp and a signature to the report without the need to store those separately and submit them later.
- Once submitted, the report is shared with the right manager for review with a single click.
- Each action is assigned to a person, and a due date is added, so you can immediately see what’s overdue or waiting for a check.
- The follow-up check goes on the calendar for the date you set, and the result is linked to the original report.
- Closed reports are stored in a secure cloud archive, and you can pull up the full history in seconds for safety audits and inspections.
- Real-time reports show when the same issue appears across sites, so you can act before it spreads.
Create Your Corrective Action Form With doForms
doForms is a mobile forms solution that allows you to follow a corrective action report from the first finding to verified closure.
You can build your own corrective action form in minutes using 30 drag-and-drop tools.
Make root cause, owner, due date and verification fields mandatory for completion to ensure nothing important is missing.
Your teams can fill out the corrective action report anywhere works sends them: in a warehouse dead zone, on a rooftop or at a remote site.
If there’s no connection, the data will sync to the cloud as soon as the device reconnects.
Companies around the world have submitted more than 2 billion forms through doForms, and new customers get a 30-day free trial.
Call to action: Digitize your corrective action reports with doForms. Request a demo
