What is a nonconformance?
Also called: nonconformity, non-conformance, NCR
Last updated
A nonconformance, also called a nonconformity, is anything that fails to meet a requirement: a product outside its specification, a process step not followed, or a record missing or wrong. It is usually logged in a nonconformance report, contained, assessed for its cause and, where needed, passed to a corrective action process.
In more detail
Nonconformances turn up in inspections, audits, customer complaints and day-to-day work. Quality standards such as ISO 9001 expect an organisation to react to each one: control and correct it, deal with the consequences, and decide whether action is needed so it does not happen again.
A nonconformance report usually records what was found, where and when, what requirement it breaks, how much is affected, what was done straight away, such as quarantining stock, and who will investigate. Serious or repeated ones lead to a root cause analysis and a CAPA.
Example
A goods-in inspection finds a batch of brackets drilled 2 mm off the drawing. The inspector raises a nonconformance report, labels and quarantines the batch, and the quality engineer decides to return it to the supplier and opens a corrective action with them.
Nonconformances in CheckFlow
In CheckFlow an inspection step can ask Pass or Fail, and conditional logic shows the nonconformance steps only when it fails: what was found, photos uploaded as evidence, containment and disposition. A Linked Checklist field can start a CAPA checklist from the nonconformance, so the two stay connected.
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