Actions, Corrective Actions and Supplier Management in HCM

One action report for everything

Every gap, owner and target date together. The action report lists every gap, partly met and not sure finding with what is missing, the action that closes it, the responsible people and the target date. It can be sorted and grouped to suit the meeting, printed or saved as a PDF, and exported as a spreadsheet when someone needs the figures in their own format.

Overdue work surfaced, not buried. Overdue actions are marked in the report and counted on the home page, and the management summary groups them by how late they are. A manager can see in seconds whether the plan is on track, and an auditor can see that the organisation knows where it stands, which is often what separates a minor finding from a major one.

Mine, and everyone else’s. Each person can filter to their own actions, and actions shared between several people show who leads and what each person is doing. That small detail removes a surprising amount of “I thought you were doing that”.

Corrective actions that close properly

HCM handles corrective action requests (CARs) and supplier corrective action requests (SCARs) as a structured process rather than a free-text form. Each one moves through containment, root cause, corrective action and verification in order, because that is the sequence auditors test and the one that stops the same problem coming back. The source is recorded, whether a customer complaint, an internal audit finding, a supplier issue or a management review action, with a grade or priority, the section of the standard and the due date.

The register is never quietly tidied. A CAR raised in error is cancelled with a reason and stays listed, so the history an auditor sees is the history that happened. Evidence can be attached at every stage, from the containment photograph to the record that proves the fix worked.

Suppliers answer for themselves

A secure link, no extra login. When a supplier is the cause of a problem, HCM sends them a secure link to their SCAR. They answer each section, attach their evidence and send it back for review without needing an account. Your team can return it with a comment or accept it, and the supplier sees exactly what is being asked of them.

Reminders that send themselves. HCM emails once at each step and reminds suppliers before and after the due date, so the chasing that used to fill a quality manager’s week now happens on its own.

An approved supplier register in the same place

The supplier register records what each supplier provides, how critical they are, the basis for their approval (certification, supply history or a supplier audit), certificate expiry dates, supplier corrective actions in the last twelve months, a performance rating and the date of the next review. A supplier no longer used is marked as removed rather than deleted, so the evidence for past purchases stays intact.

For aerospace and defence suppliers working to AS9100D, and automotive suppliers working towards IATF 16949, supplier control is one of the areas certification bodies probe hardest. Keeping approval, performance and corrective action in one record makes that conversation much shorter.

Built on how audits actually go

The structure of this part of HCM comes from years of supporting organisations through certification and surveillance audits, and from running internal audit programmes through our audit support service. We built in the evidence auditors ask for, the sequence they expect and the history they check, so your team spends its time fixing problems rather than proving it fixed them.

See how the actions connect back to the HCM gap analysis, or get in touch for a walkthrough of corrective actions and suppliers with your own processes in mind.